News Analysis: Antonio Guterres takes over UN helm and its challenges

Days before former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pushed the button to begin the New Year's countdown in nearby Times Square, he said millions of people would be watching him lose his job, but far fewer witnessed on Sunday Antonio Guterres step in to replace him as new UN chief.

Because of the holiday, Guterres takes over Ban's desk at UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

After the affable Korean bowed out of the position he held for 10 years, still plugging the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Agenda 2030, his replacement, former prime minister of Portugal and a lauded former head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), took the reins of the 193-member organization with an impassioned plea for peace.

"How can we help the millions of people caught up in conflict, suffering massively in wars with no end in sight?" asked Guterres, 67, in a prepared statement. "I ask all of you to join me in making one shared New Year's resolution: Let us resolve to put peace first. Let us make 2017 a year in which we all -- citizens, governments, leaders -- strive to overcome our differences."

But those reins Guterres has taken are only figurative. The 193 UN member states are actually his bosses and he is pressed to do their bidding. He can advise and guide, although the office does carry moral weight.

The states have different agendas from Syria, Yemen, Libya, the Israeli-Palestinian crisis through the conflicts in Africa, namely South Sudan, to supposed threats of a return to the days of the Cold War.

Richard Haas, president of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, described the role of secretary-general a few weeks ago as "a difficult job. You get more criticism than kudos, in my experience. And it's also a difficult job in another way, where you're the leader of an organization, but it's in some ways an organization designed not to be led."

The member states are not all equal bosses of course, as some are more equal than others, namely the permanent five members of the UN Security Council, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States who each hold a right to veto in the 15-member body.

At least they all came together in the Council Saturday to unanimously support the Russian-Turkish guaranteed cease-fire process in Syria.

Guterres is in no need to search for work to do.

While global peace may be his most prominent quest, ranking up there also are the additional UN pillars of economic development and human rights.

After his swearing-in on Dec. 12, Guterres voiced concern beyond those key three.

"A new threat has emerged -- global terrorism," he said. "Megatrends -- including climate change, population growth, rapid urbanization, food insecurity and water scarcity -- have increased competition for resources and heightened tensions and instability."

He spoke of the rekindling of old differences leading to new and more complex and interlinked wars.

Disparity has widened, people have been left behind in globalization as old jobs have disappeared, the UN chief said. "In many parts, youth unemployment has exploded. And globalization has also broadened the reach of organized crime and (people) trafficking."

With growing instability in some countries, "many have lost confidence not only in their governments, but in global institutions, including the United Nations," he said. With fear driving decisions of many people, "it is time to reconstruct relations between people and leaders -- national and international; time for leaders to listen and show that they care."

And that, he said, was a cue for the United Nations "to do the same: to recognize its shortcomings and to reform the way it works."

Beside reforming the more obvious, composition and participation in the august Security Council, Guterres said the world organization "has not yet done enough to prevent and respond to the appalling crimes of sexual violence and exploitation committed under the UN flag against those we are supposed to protect." He endorsed Ban's zero tolerance campaign.

The new UN head called the SDGs and the Paris climate change agreement "key elements" of his reform agenda and "an expression of global solidarity, with their promise to leave no one behind."

He vowed to make development central, engage in its comprehensive reform, seeks to bring humanitarian and development work closer together "from the very beginning of a crisis" with more accountability for each agency.

Promising to build on existing efforts in management reform and implement recent initiatives that were approved, Guterres said,"We need to create a consensus around simplification, decentralization and flexibility."

Guterres promised "gender parity" among UN staff, pledging to reach the goal "from the start in all my appointments to the Senior Management Group and the Chief Executives Board." Furthermore, he hoped to reach "full gender parity" in top management, "including special representatives and special envoys" by the end of his five-year term.

He got off to a good start on that promise by appointing three women: Amina Mohammed, formerly Nigeria's environment minister, as deputy secretary-general and Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, former under-secretary for Asia and the Pacific in the Brazilian foreign ministry, as his chef de cabinet.

Guterres also created the position of special advisor on policy and appointed to the post Kyung-wha Kang of South Korea, who heads up his transition team.

If all the problems Guterres faces are not enough, there's one more consideration. The biggest donor to the United Nations, the United States, on Jan. 20 gets a new President -- Donald Trump, known to be hostile to the world organization along with other members of the Republican Party taking power in Washington, DC. The outlook on that front is not rosy. Enditem