UN Secretary-General: Knowing When to Lead

It could be the job description from hell, leading a large international organisation and answerable to its 192 component parts. But there are people eager to become UN Secretary-General and by the end of the year someone will be getting ready to take over. The present incumbent, Kofi Annan, says that he is expected to be both the world’s chief diplomat and to run a large and complex organisation as it were in his spare time. The new reality of the UN is managing multi-billion dollar operations to help keep peace and combat poverty and humanitarian disaster.