Blue Smoke is an initiative led by the United Nations Association – UK, Plataforma CIPÓ and a consultant at Strategy for Humanity to promote greater accountability and transparency within the United Nations, especially with regards to elections and appointments to senior positions within the organisation. The Blue Smoke project conducts research, advocacy and communications activities to achieve its goal of ensuring that appointments to senior roles at the UN are inclusive, democratic, merit-based, transparent, and subject to scrutiny. This is essential for the credibility and effectiveness of UN leaders, and by extension, the UN. Blue Smoke also calls attention to the inequalities that persist across leadership positions to ensure that qualified candidates are not excluded from consideration based on nationality, gender, or race.
One of Blue Smoke’s activities is a monthly newsletter published in partnership with Pass Blue. The February edition, entitled “The Future is Packed”, can be read here and highlights the process of the Future Summit, scheduled for next September, and whose Pact is being drafted with input from member states and civil society. Among the highlighted senior appointments in this edition are: Victims’ Rights Advocate, Under-Secretary-General for Operational Support (DOS), Executive Director of UN Habitat, and Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The newsletter also covers the new members of the International Court of Justice and the vacant seat for Eastern Europe in the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
