The United Nations (UN) is the only international organization the world possesses which member nations need to make work in the best way possible in order to help humanity navigate the storms of the 21st Century.
One may wonder whether the UN since its establishment has met the objectives that led to its formation in 1945, after the World War 2. The UN was established to ensure peace and prosperity for mankind. But scholars who understand how the UN as an institution works have stated that there is the problem of overlap and confusion among many UN bodies. Simply, the UN is highly complex organizationally.
If one draws extensively from the preamble of the UN Charter, one will not be totally wrong to state that the UN has failed woefully at least in ensuring peace and prosperity globally. You may be wondering what the UN Charter is all about? The UN Charter, which is the founding document of the United Nations, was signed on 26 June 1945 at San Francisco. Part of the Charter says:
“We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women, and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards in life in larger freedom…”
But public intellectuals have observed that the language used in the UN Charter with respect to development was fragile and ambiguous when compared with the purposeful and direct language used with respect to peace
But public intellectuals have observed that the language used in the UN Charter with respect to development was fragile and ambiguous when compared with the purposeful and direct language used with respect to peace. In order to actualize the UN objectives, member nations were bound to work in partnership for international security, but encouraged to cooperate for global prosperity. But the quest of many nations for peace and prosperity is elusive today.
Anyone who has watched the UN from a global radar particularly from Africa or looked at the agenda of items and reports placed before the General Assembly would have seen United Nations in their elusive quest for peace and prosperity. We are living in a peaceful but dangerous world ravaged by war, hunger, famine, drought, flood and pandemics such that one may ask: Why do leaders still bother showing up at the UN General Assembly (UNGA)? They assemble to talk! In fact, a columnist referred to our world leaders as “talkers”.
Sometime in September this year, world leaders gathered in New York. A level playing field was created for all leaders as we listened to speeches eloquently delivered from one heads of states to the other. We heard directly from each head of state talking to the world from the green rostrum of the UN Chambers. But more specifically to their own citizens back home on global issues.
The world order that the UN enshrined is gradually becoming fragmented. “Our world is in big trouble,” Secretary -General Antonio Guterres, said in his opening remarks at annual General Assembly on Tuesday September 20, 2022. Since the UN was established, it has rarely lived up to its loftier goals.
The richer parts of the world were doing fine before COVID-19 pandemic, while what was required of African and Asian countries was to join the UN and obey the rules. African and Asian countries are to buy and sell on the world market and they should not go communist; and build up local infrastructure, education and society. Today, global economies have been disrupted by COVID-19 pandemic, Russia- Ukraine War, hunger, climate change, and a host of other issues.
The biggest threat facing the world today is the Russia-Ukraine War provoked and executed by Vladimir Putin. Putin ordered the deployment of an overwhelming military force at the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In retaliation, Ukraine with supplies from Western countries, has managed to repel the Russians pushing them out of their comfort zones. The Ukrainians are now gearing up for more offensive against Russian forces.
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Russia has trampled the UN Charter with its invasion of Ukraine. As the world is moving towards an escalation of the war which threatens to involve the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, what do we observe at the recently concluded General Assembly? The members talk, and deliver brilliant speeches from the podium. But President Biden told the UNGA that “A nuclear war cannot be won, and must never be fought.”
Gone are the days when the UN which has 193 heads of states of recognized independent countries was a hotbed of diplomacy in times of war. But these days we have seen Russia and China use their Security Council vetoes to distort efforts to mediate in places like Syria and Ukraine. Following the invasion of Ukraine this year, Russia has allegedly turned council meetings into a theatre of the absurd, according to reports.
Recent floods in most parts of the world suggest that the UN’s efforts to broker deals curbing carbon emissions appears already too late for some nations. While the World Hunger Facts and Statistics show that from 2019 to 2022, the number of undernourished people around the world grew as many as 150 million. This, according to the report, is largely caused by conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. World hunger is on the rise, affecting nearly 10 percent of the world’s population globally. The year 2022 has been regarded as a year of “unprecedented hunger” in which 828 million people go to bed hungry every night.
The number of people going to bed daily with hunger is likely to rise in Nigeria as heavy rains and flash floods have destroyed many farmlands in key agricultural producing states. The 2022 combined report by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), World Food Program and the United Nations, Nigeria is one of the countries listed as the “Hotspot of Global Hunger” – where many people are facing hunger. FAO, in a separate report, had earlier in the year stated that 90.4 million Nigerians were food-insecure, while malnutrition rates in most northern states had more than double. Since the Russian-Ukraine war, the prices of bread, pastries, and biscuits have been rising in the Nigerian market.
What is the UN doing about hunger? Put differently, how is the world going to reach zero hunger by 2030? It is for governments globally to protect the most vulnerable by expanding social protections for the people who are poor. To address rising poverty, countries are deploying social safety net programs as part of their development plans such as provision of cash, Medicare, and public works targeted at the poor. The objective is to reduce poverty gap significantly. But will these efforts reduce the poverty gap significantly before 2030 when all the UN Sustainable Development Goals are to be achieved? Your guess is as good as mine.
We must appreciate humanitarians and health workers who are doing fantastic jobs to save lives of men, women and children in extraordinary times across the globe. But scholars are worried about unprecedented changes in global affairs. They ask: Should members of the General Assembly accept, condone or normalize grave violations of international law and human rights in a world where impunity prevails? No! This is because a world where impunity prevails is unjust, unstable and dangerous for over eight billion people globally.
Perhaps, all this explains the extraordinary bleak tones of the UN Secretary-General’s speech, as he lamented that there was no cooperation, no dialogue, no collective problems solving while he warned that “the reality is that we live in a world where the logic of dialogue and cooperation is the only path forward.” Thank you.
