On May 9th, 2019, the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA) hosted the 2019 Security Council Election Briefing with Estonia. We invited Estonia and Romania, the two candidate Member States from the Eastern European Group for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council, to participate in an Election Debate however, Romania declined. The elections for the Security Council will take place on June 7th, 2019.
The Briefing featured H.E. Sven Jürgenson, Permanent Representative of Estonia to the UN, candidate for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council in 2020-2021. WFUNA’s Secretary-General, Mr. Bonian Golmohammadi, moderated the Briefing along with WFUNA’s Peace and Security Officer, Mr. Pablo Angulo-Troconis. The Briefing was attended by over 140 participants from Permanent Missions (Member and Observer States), UN Agencies, Civil Society Organizations and the media, including representatives from 90 different Permanent Missions.
The event was webcast on UN Web TV and promoted on social media with the hashtag #UNSCElections to allow for participation from a global audience and wider stakeholder engagement.
Ambassador Jürgenson presented the case for Estonia’s first candidature to the Security Council, and their three campaign pillars: Efficiency, Equality, and Empathy. The floor was then opened for questions from representatives of Member States and from Civil Society Organizations on topics relating to the cooperation between the ‘elected 10’, transparency at the Security Council, Youth empowerment, Women, Peace and Security, the development of peacekeeping and peace operations and, on the crisis in Venezuela.