Uganda seconds Amb. Olara Otunnu for UN Secretary General
The government has called on UN member states to give Ambassador Otunnu's candidature their utmost support.
The Government of Uganda has announced the candidature of Ambassador Olara Otunnu for the position of United Nations (UN) Secretary-General. (File photo)
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The Government of Uganda has announced the candidature of Ambassador Olara Otunnu for the position of United Nations (UN) Secretary-General.
The government has called on UN member states to give Ambassador Otunnu's candidature their utmost support.
In a press release issued on July 26, 2026, and signed by the permanent secretary in the foreign affairs ministry, Vincent Waiswa Bagiire, the government confirmed its secondment of Otunnu for the UN Secretary-General position, describing him as a distinguished Ugandan statesman and international civil servant.
“Ambassador Otunnu brings to this candidature over four decades of distinguished service at the highest levels of international diplomacy, having served both within the United Nations system and in senior leadership roles across government, academia, and civil society,” the statement reads in part.
“The Government of Uganda is confident that Ambassador Otunnu's unique breadth of experience, spanning the UN Secretariat, the Security Council, national government, academia, and grassroots peacebuilding, makes him exceptionally well suited to lead the United Nations at this critical juncture in global affairs,” Bagiire stated.
Giving a brief background, Bagiire said that within the UN system, Otunnu, 76, served as Under-Secretary-General and the first Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict from 1998 to 2005, a mandate which he said enabled him to build into one of the organisation's most influential offices.
“In this capacity, he (Otunnu) successfully placed the protection of war-affected children on the agenda of the Security Council and designed the landmark compliance and monitoring regime adopted under Security Council Resolution 1612 in 2005, which remains in operation to-date,” the statement further reads.
Otunnu, a former President of the Uganda People's Congress (UPC) political party from 2010 to 2015, stood as the party's candidate in the 2011 presidential election. He also served as Uganda's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN between 1980 and 1985, and as President of the UN Security Council in December 1981.
Described as a politician, diplomat and lawyer, Otunnu served at the national level as Uganda's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1985 to 1986 and as a member of the Uganda National Consultative Council during the country's transitional period following the fall of the Idi Amin regime.
He later led the International Peace Academy, now the International Peace Institute, as President from 1990 to 1998, and has held academic positions at Albany Law School, the American University in Paris and the Institute Français des Relations Internationales.
The Permanent Secretary stated that Otunnu's contributions to international peace and human rights have been recognised through numerous prestigious awards, including the Sydney Peace Prize (2005), the German Africa Prize (2002) and the Harvard Law School Alumni Association Award (2007).
“In recent years, Mr Otunnu has co-led Roco Paco, a community-rooted peacebuilding initiative alongside Chief Justice Emeritus Hon. Justice Alfonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo, dedicated to healing and rebuilding communities in northern Uganda following over two decades of conflict”.
Otunnu holds a bachelor’s degree in jurisprudence from Oxford University and a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School. He is fluent in English, French and Luo.