On November 9, 2023, the Ford Foundation Center in New York hosted the official launch of Latvia’s candidacy campaign for an elected seat on the United Nations Security Council. At the opening event for the occasion, the participants were addressed by the President of Latvia, Edgars Rinkēvičs. A performance was then given by the Youth Choir “Kamēr...”. The audience included the Permanent Representatives of UN member states, their deputies, and other senior officials from all the world’s regions.
The campaign aims at ensuring successful election of Latvia to the United Nations Security Council for the 2026–2027 term in the 2025 election. Latvia is running for the seat of an elected member of the UNSC for the first time. To garner that support, Latvia has to undertake an international pre-election campaign, which includes addressing member states during bilateral visits and meetings on the sidelines of multilateral events, as well as increasing the international visibility of Latvia.
For Latvia to be elected, it must receive support from at least two-thirds of UN Member States, or 129 votes from among 193 voting countries. Membership of the UNSC will be one of key instruments in pursuit and protection of Latvia’s foreign policy interests, as well as making it possible for Latvia to expand the scale of its cooperation. This would enable Latvia to make its contribution to world peace and resilience – the goal also reflected in the campaign’s motto, “Together for Peace and Resilience”.
Since Latvia became a full-fledged member of the United Nations on September 17, 1991, a successful development of society has been achieved in the country. Latvia, having evolved from aid beneficiary to donor, actively participates and contributes to international processes. Latvia’s membership application to the UN Security Council seals its dedication to assume further responsibility for international processes, to actively advocate for the rule of law and human rights, as well as the modernisation of the UN system. Latvia supports greater transparency, efficiency and accountability of the UN Security Council. Latvia is already actively advocating for issues such as the territorial integrity of Ukraine, violations of human rights in Belarus, cyber security and combating disinformation, peacekeeping, promoting women’s rights and opportunities, climate change, and many others to be kept high on the UN agenda.
In April 2023, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the thematic lines of action for the campaign, developed by the Interinstitutional Working Group under the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and jointly with representatives from the public, non-governmental and private sectors. Several lines of action were defined: the rule of law and democracy (incl. good governance, societal resilience and development of an integrated society, democracy and the rule of law, international law); women’s empowerment (incl. implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda); solutions for security, sustainability and development (incl. climate, water, cyber security, and digital technologies). Resilience is the cross-cutting theme of those lines of action.
