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On Inside Geneva this week, we look at the race to be the next UN Secretary-General. Is it time for a change?

Susana Malcorra, candidate for UN Secretary-General 2016: 'I am deeply convinced this is a moment that requires a different type of leadership, and we have tested leadership nine leaders throughout 80 years that were all men.'

Geneva recently hosted three of the candidates – we hear from them. What are their plans?

Rebeca Grynspan, candidate for Secretary-General: 'My criteria of success as secretary general is that nobody will ask me again: Where is the UN?' If that question continues we will be irrelevant.'

What are the UN's challenges?

María Fernanda Espinosa, candidate for Secretary-General: 'I think the UN does not suffer from a crisis of purpose or principles enshrined in the Charter. It suffers from a crisis of delivery of impact, of accountability, and of inclusion.'

And what does it still have to offer?

Michelle Bachelet, candidate for Secretary-General: 'Multilateralism has a lot of problems, but if you didn't have a multilateral system, children in the refugee camps wouldn't have vaccines. People displacement wouldn't have support. So there's a lot of things that multilateralism has done and we need to improve.'

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.

Get in touch!

• Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch
• Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en

Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

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This week, Inside Geneva presents the newest instalment of our “Books to make you think” series.

We talk to an author who had a ringside seat as the US development agency USAID was being destroyed.

“The people who so recklessly tore down the agency [...] are still sitting in high government positions and have not been held accountable for their actions, so I intentionally named names in the book and explained exactly who was responsible and why,” says Nicholas Enrich, author of Into the Wood Chipper.

“USAID was destroyed by people who really had no idea what they were doing, and because of the vindictive ego of Elon Musk,” continues Enrich.

And we hear about a forensic analysis of the language used by US media to report the war in Gaza.

“The New York Times referred to the killing of Israelis on October 7 as a ‘massacre’ 124 times, and a ‘slaughter’ 53 times. In the same time frame, they used similar language zero times to describe the killing of Palestinians, despite the fact that, in the first 100 days, the death toll was seven or eight times higher than on October 7. Zero, not once, did they describe anything Israel did to the Palestinians in that period as a massacre or a slaughter,” says Adam H. Johnson, author of How to Sell a Genocide.

Did the mainstream media sanitise war crimes?

“Do you think that it is possible Israel killed 20,000 children at least – that’s the official number that no one disputes – over two years and never once committed a massacre or a slaughter? Does that feel statistically likely to you? I think the answer is, on its face, ‘no’,” says Johnson.

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva.

Get in touch!

• Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch
• Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en

Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang

Send us Fan Mail

On our Inside Geneva podcast this week, we host a debate on a key question: what’s the point of foreign aid?

“What’s the point of mobilising taxpayers’ money and sending it to faraway countries to assist vulnerable people? And how do you sell that to your own taxpayers?” says Gilles Carbonnier, former Vice-President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

There are more conflicts and greater needs, yet donor countries want to spend less.

“What’s the point of mobilising taxpayers’ money and sending it to faraway countries to assist vulnerable people? And how do you sell that to your own taxpayers?” says Gilles Carbonnier, former Vice-President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

There are more conflicts and greater needs, yet donor countries want to spend less.

Do we think some people’s tragedies are less important than others?

If a child is in pain in Khartoum, that’s exactly the same as a child being in pain in New York or London. If a mother is grieving in Gaza, that’s exactly the same as a mother grieving in Geneva,” says Chris Lockyear, former Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

How can aid agencies better explain what they do?

“What defines us is humanity, and humanity means we cannot stay idle when we see others suffering. We have to act and do something to try to protect them, assist them and prevent suffering, regardless of where this happens,” says Carbonnier.

Listen to the full episode on Inside Geneva.

Get in touch!

• Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch
• Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en

Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang