An Invisible United Nations is a Vulnerable United Nations

In an era of declining trust and rising skepticism in global institutions, the next Secretary-General must become a publicly visible advocate and champion of multilateralism.

The empty chamber of the General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Photo by Phil Roeder/Getty Images. Image from The Guardian.

By: Megan Wood

In 1953, the first United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, famously described the role as “the most impossible job in the world.” More than seventy years later, the job has not become any easier, with the nature of its impossibility having only become more complex.

In April 2026, a series of televised town halls gave the public a rare glimpse of the candidates vying to become the next UN Secretary-General. This selection process is high stakes, dictating the course of international action for the future on everything from AI regulation to climate collapse. Yet, the vast majority of the 8 billion people that candidates hope to serve did not tune in. The problem here is not that the UN is unpopular. It is that, to most people, it is invisible.

To be clear, the UN is not, and was never designed to be, a representative body that derives its authority from individual citizens. It is a global forum through which sovereign states build consensus around norms and standards, support peace and security, and coordinate responses to shared challenges; and yet, the challenge of public disengagement does matter.

According to the 2020 UN75 final global consultation report, more than half of respondents saw the UN as disconnected from their lives. Further, surveys from the Pew Research Center showcase a deterioration in public opinion regarding UN effectiveness. And, as the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Global Report makes clear, the world is turning inward and trust in international institutions is declining. Even the institution itself understands it is facing a growing “crisis of confidence”, as identified by member states and UN officials at the February 2025 Security Council meeting.

With the selection of the tenth Secretary-General approaching, waning public attention threatens the UN’s standing, its ability to have real impact at the local level, and sets the next candidate up with a formidable assignment. For these reasons, this dynamic is arguably more dangerous than direct criticism and underscores the following three challenges for the next Secretary-General and Secretariat.

First, the UN’s influence over national behaviour often depends on its ability to empower local movements and actors, and this drive only exists when people know what their governments have agreed to. The UN plays an essential role in establishing global standards that local actors, civil society organizations, and citizens can use to advocate for stronger domestic protections, including the Paris Agreement, frameworks like the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and emerging governance instruments on artificial intelligence and cybercrime.

But these standards only generate domestic accountability when citizens recognize them as meaningful commitments. When the public no longer acknowledges the importance of the UN’s role in shaping these standards, the connection between international commitments and local democratic accountability begins to erode. Research from the 2016-2021 Legitimacy in Global Governance program goes even further: once citizens become apathetic towards international institutions, breaking a global promise costs a leader almost nothing at home. Governments can walk back climate targets, human rights obligations, or multilateral pledges with little fear of electoral or societal backlash.

Second, a remote Secretariat creates an information vacuum that actively distorts how the public understands the institution. The UN becomes an easy scapegoat for domestic frustration when its decision-making processes appear disconnected from local communities and are poorly articulated to and understood by the public. Here, a stark trust gap emerges between those who believe the existing system works and those who feel excluded or ignored by it.

When no one at the top is visible enough to explain why the UN matters, it becomes easy to characterize the organization as remote, unelected, and elitist, and this characterization crowds out the reality of its capabilities. As a result, the institution’s quiet but essential work, such as coordinating humanitarian responses, facilitating secure data sharing across borders, supporting refugee protections, and enabling international health and development cooperation, becomes increasingly and globally invisible as well. Meanwhile, the highly visible Security Council deadlocks are amplified and weaponized to justify intensifying public criticism and further pressure to disengage from multilateral organizations.

Third, invisibility creates a leadership gap. The UN Charter defines the Secretary-General as the Chief Administrative Officer, but the role ideally carries a public dimension that transcends its administrative responsibilities. When the Secretary-General is seen merely as a passive administrator, even significant reforms risk appearing as grey bureaucratic exercises instead of ambitious efforts to redefine multilateralism. Without leadership capable of clearly communicating the purpose, urgency, and human stakes of reform, any institutional restructuring becomes detached from public imagination and political support, making reforms harder to sustain.

This connection demands more than competent management. It demands the willingness to speak honestly about failure, draw lessons publicly, and redirect institutional energy in ways people can see and follow. Kofi Annan embodied this. As head of UN Peacekeeping, he was a frontline witness to the tragedies in Rwanda in 1994 and Srebrenica in 1995. Rather than retreat from that history, when Annan stepped into the role of Secretary-General in 1997, he pushed the UN towards developing the innovative Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, placing civilian protection at the centre of the institution’s normative framework. Annan’s tenure is a lesson in what visible and courageous leadership can accomplish and is precisely what the current moment demands.

Admittedly, the UN has already begun recognizing these challenges. Initiatives like the UN80 process and the subsequent 2026 Pact for the Future, highlight how the institution is responding to public frustrations and pivoting towards a “simpler, more effective and more coherent UN system that delivers better for the people and the planet”. Additionally, the selection process for the tenth Secretary-General marks a promising shift towards a more transparent and publicly engaged model with reforms such as a structured timeline, candidate funding disclosure, and renewed emphasis on integrity and funding transparency. In April 2026, candidates participated in interactive dialogues with local civil society organizations. And finally, the newly launched Pact for the Future Progress Dashboard allows the public to monitor where the incoming Secretary-General is meeting specific targets laid out in the 2024 Pact for the Future agreement.

The UN75 final report found a paradoxical silver lining: 74% of respondents still consider the UN essential to tackling global challenges into the future. The tenth Secretary-General will inherit an institution that most of the world still considers essential, yet one that is losing the political backing, public recognition, and financial commitment that make sustained action possible.

When citizens do not understand what their governments have signed up to, international commitments become easier to abandon. When no one at the top explains why the institution matters, the vacuum fills with cynicism. And when leadership retreats into administration, even genuine reform goes unnoticed.

The next UN Secretary-General and Secretariat must recognize that visibility and effectiveness are not separate ambitions. The institution must be visible, recognized as relevant, and trusted by the people whose governments provide its mandate, and whose engagement will ultimately determine whether that mandate holds.