Key said outgoing British Prime Minister David Cameron told him on Monday he thought Clark, who is head of the UN Development Program, would potentially be very good in the top UN job.
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The UN invited the candidates running for the Secretary-General position to the UN Headquarters’ General Assembly hall on Tuesday evening, to hold its first-ever live, internationally televised debate.
Ahead of the Townhall, General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft said: “In the past, UN Secretaries-General have been chosen behind closed doors”.
In her opening statement, Miss Clark said the United Nations was falling short when it came to maintaining peace and security.
“We have to get better at preventing conflict and resolving conflict”, she said. “I believe the long-term answers lie in building the peaceful and inclusive societies which will talk their differences out and not fight them out”, Miss Clark said.
“But in the short term we have to get a lot better at anticipating those warning signs of what could spill over into serious human rights abuses and conflict”. She added later that she had the “vision, experience and skills” to lead the UN.
Also taking part in the debate are Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, Igor Luksic of Montenegro and Danilo Turk of Slovenia.
The 193-member general assembly has sought to lift a veil of secrecy that has surrounded the election of the United Nations chief for the past 70 years by requiring public nominations and holding campaign-style town hall events with each candidate.
“I’m from the others and sometimes I think WEOG should stand for western European and orphans, because my little country is from the South Pacific and it’s never had a secretary-general either. This is a critical job”.
She didn’t bother correcting the president of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies when he called her “prime minister”.
“The Security Council works best when there isn’t polarisation on it”. “If it was a straight horse race on who has got the most ability I think Helen Clark would win”. “That puts people and planet up front, and that is driven by the reality of issues and the need to deliver results”, she said. “That is the approach we must take”. The organisation has been blamed for introducing cholera to the country through its peacekeepers.
But she conceded that the worldwide response to Haiti had been inadequate, and that the United Nations needed to rally support for a rebuilding the country.
The secretary general would fail if he, or she, did not take careful account of the concerns of the 193 member states.
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She went on to say “the situation is extremely hard in a number of countries” and that the public can “count on me to be an advocate for everybody’s human rights”.
