On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week, something unprecedented happened at the United Nations. Each and every declared candidate to become the next UN Secretary General faced a marathon session of questioning by UN member states and civil society.  

To be sure, there was plenty of the kind of diplospeak that can be understood only to people deeply ensconced in the United Nations. But it also produced some pretty enlightening and refreshing moments to remind the world just how powerful a voice the United Nations Secretary General can be. The hearings lasted over 20 hours. I watched nearly all of it. 

I was left with two big impressions. 

First, there is profound momentum to encouraging gender parity at the United Nations. 

Of the 9 candidates, four were women. Of the five men, each and everyone pledged to appoint a female deputy secretary general, and also pledged to take concrete steps toward gender parity in high level UN appointments.   "If I am selected Secretary General, the Deputy Secretary General has to be a women,” said Igor Luksic, of Montenegro. “That is a first step." 

He promised to show a commitment that the senior management team reflects equitable regional representation as well as gender parity. "I was first Prime Minister in the Balkans to appoint a female defense minister!" 

Irina Bokova, the UNESCO director general and Bulgarian national cited her own experience as a high achieving women in international relations. ”For a long time I thought having a quota or encouraging women to participate in public positions was not necessary," she said. "I saw that it doesn't happen that way. We need to do this in an organized manner."

Second: The questions asked were nearly as telling as the answers given. 

Countries generally formed groups from which a question was asked on behalf of the members of that group. Some groups asked the exact same questions to each candidate, so you got a sense of the priorities that certain countries have. For example, many countries from the developing world asked a variation of the question: “What will you do to ensure that more high level UN positions go to people from the developing world?”

This question is a reflection of the frustration felt by many developing countries over the fact that most senior UN officials are westerners. The USA asked each candidate a question about UN Peacekeeping reform—something they consider a priority. And Russia, for its part, asked no questions at all. 

Still what distinguished this process was that questions were taken from civil society as well. Global Citizen, indeed, got the first question! But it was this question from a 12 year old girl in England that I found to be the most interesting question of the whole, 20 hour process. 

If only all our diplomats were as introspective as young Katie.

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of each of the partners of Global Citizen.