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As the United Nations prepares to select its 10th Secretary-General, the UN Foundation turned to GeoPoll to answer a fundamental question: what does the world actually think about the UN, and what do people want from its next leader?
The result is A Mandate for Renewal: Global Public Opinion on the United Nations and the Selection of the 10th Secretary-General, a 20-country study fielded between September 1 and 16, 2026. GeoPoll led the fieldwork, surveying 5,000 respondents across all 15 members of the UN Security Council plus five additional major nations, together representing 4.5 billion people, or 56% of the world’s population.
Why this study mattered
Polling a UN Secretary-General selection at this scale had not been done before. It required reaching respondents across P5 nations, elected Council members, and non-Council powers, in 15 languages, using a mix of mobile web and computer-assisted telephone interviewing where connectivity required it. In the DRC, Liberia, and Somalia, GeoPoll’s in-country CATI teams conducted interviews in French, Lingala, English, and Somali to make sure lower-connectivity markets were represented, not left out. That is the kind of problem-solving GeoPoll takes on for every hard-to-reach market we cover.
What the data shows
A few findings stand out:
- People are anxious but not isolationist. 57% of respondents are worried about the future, yet nearly 90% agree that even powerful nations need international partnerships to address global threats.
- Trust in international institutions sits at 58% globally, and is notably higher in the Global South (65%) than the Global North (44%).
- 84% see the UN as necessary, but 52% say it is struggling to deliver results. Only 10% want it to keep operating exactly as it does now.
- Citizens want an outward-facing Secretary-General. Respondents split fairly evenly between wanting a diplomat (28%), a crisis manager (26%), and a moral voice (25%), with far less appetite for an internal reformer (17%).
- 61% believe it is important that the 10th Secretary-General be a woman, a view shared most strongly by women, younger adults, and Global South respondents.
- The selection race itself is largely invisible to the public. 85% have heard little or nothing about it, and candidate name recognition averages just 19%.
Delivering data that governments and institutions can act on
This project reflects what GeoPoll does across Africa, Asia, and Latin America every day: building nationally and regionally relevant samples in markets that are often excluded from global polling, and delivering data that stands up to scrutiny at scale. The methodology is documented transparently in the report’s annex, down to sample sizes, margins of error, and the limitations of nonprobability sampling in each market. That honesty about what the data can and can’t tell you is central to how GeoPoll approaches every study.
As the Security Council moves toward a final decision, this research gives the incoming Secretary-General something rare at this stage: a clear, current picture of what the people the UN ultimately serves expect from their next leader.
The full report is available from the UN Foundation.