Hitting the Ground Running: Annual Finnish Workshop for Incoming Members
The 23rd annual workshop for incoming members of the UN Security Council, titled “Hitting the Ground Running”, will be held on 6 and 7 November on Long Island, New York. The government of Finland is convening the workshop in cooperation with Security Council Report (SCR) and the Security Council Affairs Division of the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (SCAD). Historian and former UN official Thant Myint-U will give the keynote address.
Since 2003, the “Finnish Workshop” has provided an informal and interactive environment for frank discussion among current and incoming Council members about the inner workings of the Security Council. Elected in June, Bahrain, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Latvia, and Liberia will serve on the Council in 2026-2027. Alongside other opportunities to prepare for Council membership, this workshop has helped incoming members to ‘hit the ground running’ when they enter the Council on 1 January. The workshop helps incoming members understand the demands and expectations of being an elected member and allows outgoing members to share advice and highlight lessons learnt as they conclude their Council terms.
As in previous years, the workshop will be divided into three sessions. In the first session, participants will take stock of the Council’s performance in fulfilling its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security over the past year. Members will also be encouraged to assess the challenges and opportunities of the year ahead. Questions that could be addressed include:
- Can the Security Council undertake a bigger role in mediation and conflict resolution? How can the Council increase cooperation with other actors, including member states and regional organisations, which often lead or are engaged in such efforts on issues that are on the Council’s agenda?
- What more could the Council do to ensure that its resolutions are implemented on the ground?
- How can the Council support a more strategic approach to the UN80 initiative that goes beyond budget cuts to ensuring that its mandates are fit for present and future challenges?
- How could the Council undertake a bigger role in conflict prevention and peacebuilding? Which elements of resolution 2788 of 22 July could be used to encourage greater use of Chapter VI tools?
The second session will focus on the Security Council’s working methods and its subsidiary bodies. Issues that might be addressed include how to promote a more equitable distribution of work among permanent and elected members, how to enhance the transparency of the selection process for the next UN Secretary-General, how to improve the process of selecting chairs for subsidiary bodies and preparing them for their responsibilities, and how can the Council make more effective use of visiting missions.
In the third session, the outgoing Council members—Algeria, Guyana, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Sierra Leone, and Slovenia—will reflect on their time on the Council and impart lessons learnt. This session, which was added to the workshop’s agenda in 2007, offers an opportunity for the members who are ending their terms this year to share their insights on how to manage the workload in the Council, how to navigate difficult dynamics among members, and, in general, how to be an effective Council member.
Following the workshop, a report of the discussions—which are conducted under the Chatham House rule of non-attribution—will be published as an annex to a letter from the Permanent Representative of Finland to the President of the Security Council. The substance of the discussions is shared, but comments are not attributed to any of the participants.
Reports of this workshop since it began in 2003 can be found here.
