Multilateralism Minus the People: 80 Years of the UN’s Broken Promise

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Opinion

Credit: United Nations

NEW YORK, Sep 30 2025 (IPS) – Last week, the United Nations (UN) marked its 80th anniversary against the backdrop of an unprecedented global crisis. With the highest number of active conflicts since 1946, trust in multilateralism is faltering.

Yet the UN’s founding vision, rooted in the principle of ‘We the Peoples,’ remains as urgent as ever; affirming that peace, human rights, and development cannot be achieved by governments alone. From the very beginning, civil society has been integral to this vision, a role formally recognised in Article 71 of the UN Charter, which underscores the value of NGOs in shaping international agendas.

“Article71: The Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organisations which are concerned with matters within its competence. Such arrangements may be made with international organisations and, where appropriate, with national organisations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations concerned.”

Yet despite this important provision, multilateral processes have increasingly become state-centric, turning global governance into a top-down exercise detached from the people it is meant to serve.

Excluding civil society and global citizens from policy-making not only produces laws and policies out of touch with local needs but also undermines community-driven practices that are often best placed to identify challenges and craft solutions.

At worst, silencing those who hold governments accountable empowers authoritarian regimes to flout international law, restrict human rights, and erode the rules-based international order. While the UN may recognise the role of civil society in principle, why does practice remain so distant from this commitment?

One area for reflection is the extent to which international spaces mirror national realities. Many see the multilateral system as an all-powerful body safeguarding humanity from the scourge of war. In reality it is a regrouping of national actors, the same ones responsible for shrinking civic space at home.

According to the CIVICUS Monitor, more than 70 percent of the global population lives in countries where freedoms of expression, association, and assembly are severely restricted. For many human rights defenders (HRDs), even raising their voices at the UN has led to reprisals at home, including surveillance and imprisonment.

By privileging repressive states and sidelining accountability actors, multilateral institutions replicate domestic restrictions globally, leaving abuses unchecked and defenders excluded.

A second challenge is how money dictates priorities. The collapse of the global aid sector has forced many to confront this reality again. The UN is funded largely by member states through mandatory and voluntary contributions. Over time, earmarking of funds and shifting UN priorities have led to chronic underinvestment in human rights.

Today, the human rights pillar receives just five percent of the UN’s regular budget, and with the upcoming UN80 budget cuts, this already underfunded area faces further risk. When human rights are deprioritised through budget cuts and underfunding, the message to member states is clear- resources and political will are better placed elsewhere. This dynamic discourages collaboration with civil society and reinforces their marginalisation.

A third challenge is the unequal access granted to civil society at UN headquarters. Negotiation rooms are closed to most organisations, and draft resolutions are often circulated only among those with close ties to diplomats, leaving others without privileged access unable to provide timely input. Meaningful participation is impossible without timely information.

During high-level weeks in New York, even side event spaces can only be booked through a member state, effectively controlling who speaks and what is discussed. Major processes such as the Summit of the Future or Financing for Development rarely engage civil society at the national level in time to influence outcomes.

Even when hundreds of civil society organisations submit feedback on policy documents, there is little transparency on how their contributions are used. These opaque practices erode trust and leave committed groups questioning whether investing their scarce time and resources in multilateral spaces is worthwhile.

Despite these glaring challenges, which have turned the system into “we the member states,” the UN is not without tools to ensure it is inclusive of the people it was created to serve. First, existing tools such as the UN Guidance Note on the Promotion and Protection of Civic Space provide a clear framework for action through the “three P’s”: participation, protection, and promotion. To move this document beyond paper, the task force assigned to implement it must act urgently.

Accreditation processes may get civil society past the security desk after years of hurdles, but it does not guarantee meaningful engagement. What matters in the long run is meaningful participation across the UN system, not just at headquarters, in order to achieve political and practical impact.

Second, a focus on accountable leadership. When funding is slashed and political will abandoned, the UN inadvertently strengthens authoritarian regimes, enabling them to silence voices, restrict rights, and openly flout international law. This erosion of support for human rights contributes to shrinking civic freedoms worldwide and leaves many losing trust in the multilateral system.

In this context, civil society engagement is not optional, it is key to steering the UN’s future leadership toward defending human rights and global freedoms.

With conversations on the next Secretary-General already gaining momentum, civil society’s role must be a central test for every candidate. Town halls with nominees should be used to demand clear commitments to meaningful participation of civil society, as well as sustained funding and protection for human rights programmes.

This is not about tokenistic symbolism; meaningful civil society engagement is a fundamental condition for development progress, the protection of human rights, and the survival of a rules-based international order- including multilateral organisations like the UN.

As the UN enters its ninth decade, its relevance depends on accountability to the people, not just the states. Civil society must be recognized as independent partners, with their constructive input embedded across decision-making, financing, and oversight. Only by centering people and their rights can the UN restore trust, strengthen multilateralism, and truly fulfill its founding promise: a world grounded in peace, development, and human rights.

Jesselina Rana, a human rights lawyer, is the UN Advisor at CIVICUS’ New York Hub.

IPS UN Bureau

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UN80: Three Tests to Make Reform About People, Not Spreadsheets

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Opinion

Sarah Strack is Forus Director and Christelle Kalhoulé is Forus Chair and civil society leader in Burkina Faso

Credit: Forus – UN High-Level Political Forum 2025

NEW YORK, Sep 26 2025 (IPS) – This September the UN turns 80, but the lessons of peace, justice, and cooperation are still unfinished. The world today faces the flames of inequality, conflict, ecological collapse and growing digital threats. In short, the very problems the UN was created to solve are once again staring us in the face.

That’s why the UN’s latest reform push, “UN80,” matters. Launched this spring, it promises to make the multilateral system more inclusive and accountable. But here’s the real question: can it align with 21st century’s needs? Will it be remembered as a budget drill or the start of a renewal that truly delivers for people where they live?

If this moment is going to count, three things must happen.

First, reforms must put people at the center, and we must avoid a reform by spreadsheet.

The UN is under financial strain. Geopolitical tensions are sky-high, negotiations are gridlocked, Member States are late on dues and membership fees, arrears run into the billions, and the UN’s mandate, efficiency, and effectiveness are under question.

“In a polycrisis world, shrinking the UN’s capacity is like cutting the fire brigade during wildfire season,” warns Christelle Kalhoulé, Forus Chair and civil society leader in Burkina Faso. “Reform cannot be about cutting corners. It must be about giving people the protection, rights, and solidarity they are being denied today.”

The UN80 Initiative marks the most sweeping reform effort in decades, with three tracks: streamlining services and consolidating IT and HR systems, reviewing outdated mandates, and exploring the consolidation of UN agencies into seven thematic “clusters.”

On paper, these reforms could bring overdue coherence. But the process has too often felt opaque, with key documents surfacing via leaks and staff unions flagging limited transparency and consultation.

Increasing the use of tools like AI is among the “solutions” being floated to “flag potential duplication” and shorten resolutions — yet without clear guardrails, there’s a risk of automating cuts and reinforcing bias rather than empowering people-first innovation. And the debate has too often been framed around cash flow, back payments, and cuts. The United States alone owes $1.5 billion in dues. Major donors are cutting ODA, and several UN humanitarian agencies are planning double-digit reductions in 2025 in their budgets.

As Arjun Bhattarai, Executive Director of the NGO Federation of Nepal warns: “Reform cannot be a synonym for austerity. Cutting budgets may make spreadsheets look tidy in New York, but it leaves communities in Kathmandu, Kampala, Khartoum, or Kyiv without support when they need it most.”

The danger is a reform focused on management efficiencies instead of reimagining what the UN must be to meet today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

Second, a better compass exists.

Despite its flaws, multilateralism remains indispensable. Without the UN, the world would be poorer when it comes to peace, cooperation, and collective problem-solving.

What makes the UN matter most, however, are not the halls of New York or Geneva, but the people and communities it exists to serve.

The UN was created “for the people and by the people”. Protecting, safeguarding and promoting healthy sustainable lives for communities must remain the core priority.

Our measure for reform is simple: a transformed UN must reduce inequalities, ensure fairer and more inclusive representation across its governance structures, deliver public goods fairly with accountability, and protect people better, faster, while safeguarding rights.

As Moses Isooba, Executive Director of the Uganda National NGO Forum, puts it: “A reformed UN must stand closer to the people than to the corridors of power. It must be measured not by the length of resolutions, but by the depth of hope it restores and the changes it makes for communities worldwide.”

If UN80 becomes a technocratic exercise in “doing less with less,” we will emerge with a smaller, weaker UN at precisely the moment we need it most.

If instead it becomes a justice-driven reimagining — linking architecture and finance to a clear vision of protection, equity, participation, and decentralization — it could renew the UN’s capacity to act as a backbone of international cooperation.

As Justina Kaluinaite, Policy and advocacy expert at the Lithuanian NGDO Platform, stresses: “The UN will survive another 80 years only if it learns to listen. True reform is not about doing more with less, but about doing better with those who have been left out.”

Third, put reforms through three simple tests.

When leaders meet in New York, we challenge them to have every reform proposal answering three questions:

    1. The Inequality Question: Does this reform measurably narrow gaps — by income, gender, geography, or status — in who is protected and who benefits?

    2. The Localisation Question: Does it move money, decisions, and accountability closer to communities, with transparent targets and timelines?

    3. The Rights Question: Does it strengthen — not dilute — protection, gender equality, and human rights?

As Christelle Kalhoulé, sums it up: “The measure of UN80 should not be how much paper it saves, but how many lives it protects. History and the legacy we leave to future generations will not ask whether the UN balanced its budget in 2025; it will ask whether it stood with people.”

If leaders embrace this moment, the UN can emerge sharper, stronger, and more inclusive, with a justice-driven renewal of multilateralism, reclaiming its place as the backbone of global cooperation. If not, UN80 may go down in history as the moment when multilateralism chose retreat over renewal.

If UN80 is going to matter, it must prevent crises before they explode, deliver for both people and planet, give underrepresented countries and communities a real voice, keep civil society free and strong, and fix financing so money reaches those on the frontlines. The real test isn’t how tidy the org chart looks, it’s whether lives are saved, trust is rebuilt, and the UN proves it can still rise to the moment and be fit to serve this 21st century world.

IPS UN Bureau

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New Report Investigates Violence Against Women and Girls Through Surrogacy, Sparks Global Dialogue

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United Nations Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem recently released her report on violence against women and girls with a focus on surrogacy, one of the most controversial topics in the medical field.

United Nations Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

United Nations Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 19 2025 (IPS) – A United Nations report calling for the global abolition of surrogacy has sparked intense debate among experts, with critics arguing that blanket bans could harm the very women the policy aims to protect.

Reem Alsalem, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, issued a report on violence against women and girls with a specific focus on surrogacy as a form of exploitation. The report, officially titled “The different manifestations of violence against women and girls in the context of surrogacy,” was published on July 14, 2025, and is slated for discussion at the upcoming UN General Assembly session in October.

The report calls surrogacy “direct and exploitative use of a woman’s bodily and reproductive functions for the benefit of others, often resulting in long-lasting harm and in exploitative circumstances.”

It further delves into the danger of surrogacy business models, in particular, which embrace the ambiguity of international law to churn a profit, often at the expense of both the surrogate and the prospective family. Alsalem recommends the abolition of surrogacy and asks member states to “work towards adopting an international legally binding instrument prohibiting all forms of surrogacy.”

One of the largest problems with surrogacy today, according to Senior Lecturer at Swinburne University Jutharat Attawet, is a lack of comprehensive education and legal standards around the practice. This results in social alienation and false conceptions, which worsen exploitation of people who participate in surrogacy—they are not provided adequate resources

Attawet, who specializes in surrogacy healthcare and domestic policy, considers surrogacy itself a beneficial tool for nontraditional family building. However, she acknowledges the steps it has to take to ensure autonomy and respect for surrogates.

Attawet’s research, cited in Alsalem’s report, shows that approximately 1 percent of babies born in Australia are from surrogates, so although the number has doubled over the past decade, doctors are not familiar with the process. Furthermore, legislation is primarily top-down rather than region- or area-specific. Since doctors in places like Australia are “intimidated by the language” surrounding surrogacy due to minimal education, they are less willing to openly engage with the procedures. This pushes families to seek surrogates elsewhere, where laws are less stringent and doctors more comfortable with the procedures.

Another incentive for overseas surrogacy, Attawet says, is lack of national support for surrogacy. Since it does not fulfill the criteria of most healthcare insurance plans, prospective parents often seek a more affordable surrogacy birth internationally. This further contributes to the exploitation both she and Alsalem note in their respective research—international surrogacy is much more difficult to regulate between different countries’ laws and often primarily harms the surrogate and the child, who is less likely to know their birth mother from an international surrogacy.

Alsalem criticized the practice of international surrogacy as an exploitative technique to perpetuate wealth inequality between different countries, but many experts argue that the job is one of the few accessible, well-paying jobs for child-bearing people who need to care for their family full-time. Polina Vlasenko, a researcher whose work was also cited in Alsalem’s report, explained to IPS that international surrogacy in Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia “is the type of job you can combine with having a kid and being a full-time caretaker of your kid… it still benefits women.”

Vlasenko elaborated, saying that most workers in the surrogacy industry, including intermediaries and clinicians, were women who had some sort of pre-existing connection to the process—often being former surrogates. To ban surrogacy entirely, Vlasenko argues, would merely harm women in all facets of the industry rather than resolving wealth gaps. She said, “this inequality is much deeper than services of surrogacy.”

Social worker and professor at Ohio State University Sharvari Karandikar similarly opposes the Special Rapporteur’s recommendation of abolition. In an interview with IPS, Karandikar explained that “in countries like India, it’s really hard to implement policies in a uniform way, and I think that one needs to have proper oversight of medical professionals and how they’re engaging in surrogate arrangements and medical tourism. Blanket bans do not work.”

She emphasized the dangers of surrogacy without regulation, saying it would only do more harm.

Instead, Karandikar advocates for “the safety, the better communication, more education, more informed choice and decision, more safeguards, better treatment options, and long-term health coverage for women who engage in surrogacy” as “a wonderful way to speak about women’s choices, decisions and their health instead of penalizing anyone.”

However, in order for the global conversation surrounding surrogacy to center around female agency, experts like Vlasenko say the perception of surrogates needs to change. She said, “sex work is not seen as violence or exploitation when it’s done for free… it’s the same with childbirth… surrogate mothers are taking the only work that, in their situation, allows them to fulfill certain responsibilities like childcare and income generation. They think that they’re agents in this process, but society sees them as victims.”

Ultimately, the surrogacy debate reflects broader questions about women’s autonomy, economic inequality and reproductive rights. As Vlasenko noted, addressing the “much deeper inequality” that pushes women to surrogacy may prove more effective than focusing solely on limiting the practice itself.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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When Civil Society is Kept Outside, We Should Build a Bigger Room

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Opinion

Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

NEW YORK, Sep 17 2025 (IPS) – The recent IPS article, “UNGA’s High-Level Meetings: NGOs Banned Again,” served as a stark and painful reminder of a long-standing paradox: the United Nations, an organization founded on the principle of “We the Peoples,” often closes its doors to the very communities it was created to serve.

Yet, after sharing this article with our members, we were reminded of a powerful truth: in spite of these physical barriers, the NGO community is “better together” and remains a potent force capable of shaping the decisions of governments.

The ban, far from silencing us, has only amplified our resolve. As we speak, hundreds of NGOs are organizing side events outside the UN, participating with willing governments and continuing our vital work.

We are often told that access is restricted “for security.” IPS quotes voices across civil society who have heard that refrain for years. But the net effect is to marginalize the very partners the UN relies upon when crises break, when schools need rebuilding, when refugees need housing, when women and youth need pathways into the formal economy.

If the room is too small for the people, you don’t shrink the people—you build a bigger room.

This ban also speaks to the very heart of why our NGO Committee is so deeply involved in the 2025 UNGA Week (September 22-30) of International Affairs initiative. We are committed to expanding UNGA beyond the walls of the UN and into the vibrant communities of the Tri-State area and beyond.

Our goal is to transform this week into an “Olympic-caliber” platform where diplomacy connects directly with culture, community, and commerce.

As a private-sector committee of NGOs, we recognize we are sometimes perceived as being “on the side of governments” because we emphasize jobs, investment, and a strong economy. That has spared us some of the blowback that human rights and relief NGOs bear every September.

But proximity to government doesn’t mean complacency. Where we part ways with business-as-usual—both in some capitals and within parts of the UN system—is on the scale of joblessness that goes uncounted.

Official series routinely understate the lived reality in many communities. In Haiti and across segments of the LDC bloc, our coalition’s fieldwork and partner surveys suggest joblessness well above headline rates—often exceeding 60% when you strip away precarious, informal survivalism. If you don’t count people’s reality, you can’t credibly fix it.

That is why our 2025 agenda is jobs-first by design. Our Global Jobs & Skills Compact is not just a proposal; it is a declaration of our commitment to a jobs-first agenda, aligning governments, investors, DFIs, and diaspora capital around a simple test: does the money create decent work at scale—and are we measuring it?

We are mobilizing financing tied to verifiable employment outcomes, building skills pipelines for the green and digital transitions, and hard-wiring accountability into the process so that “promises” translate into paychecks.

Accountability also needs daylight. During the General Debate we will run a Jobs-First Debate Watch—tracking job and skills commitments announced from the podium and inviting follow-through across the year.

The point is not to “catch out” governments but to help them succeed by making the public a partner. Anyone who has walked with a loved one through recovery knows the first step is honesty. Denial doesn’t heal; measurement does. That is as true for addiction as it is for unemployment.

IPS rightly reminds us that NGOs are indispensable to multilateralism even when we are asked to wait outside. We agree—and we’ll add this: if the UN is “We the Peoples,” then UNGA Week must be where the peoples are.

In 2025, that means inside the Hall and across the city—on campus quads and church aisles, in galleries and small businesses, at parks and public squares. We’ll keep inviting governments to walk that route with us, shoulder to shoulder.

Until every door is open, we will keep building bigger rooms. And we will keep filling them—with jobs, skills, investment, and the voices that make multilateralism real.

Harvey Dupiton is a former UN Press Correspondent and currently Chair of the NGO Committee on Private Sector Development (NGOCPSD).

IPS UN Bureau

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NGOs on a Virtual Blacklist at UN High-Level Meetings of World Leaders

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The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in over 100 countries promoting adherence to, and implementation of, the United Nations nuclear weapons ban treaty. Credit: ICAN

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 2025 (IPS) – When the high-level meeting of over 150 world political leaders takes place September 22-30, thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their accredited UN representatives will either be banned from the UN premises or permitted into the building on a strictly restricted basis– as it happens every year.

This year will not be an exception to the rule.

In a message to staffers, journalists and NGOs last week—spelling out the rigid ground rules during the summit– the UN said members of civil society organizations (CSOs) and NGOs who are invited to attend high-level meetings or other events will be required to be in possession of a valid NGO pass– and a special event ticket (indicating a specific meeting, date and time) at all times to access the premises.

“A United Nations non-governmental organization (NGO) pass alone does not grant access during the week of 22–30 September 2025”, the message warned

These restrictions have continued despite the significant role played by NGOs both at the UN and worldwide.

A former UN Secretary-General, the late Kofi Annan (1997-2006), once characterized NGOs as ”the world’s third superpower.”

And a former Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro (2007-2012) told delegates at a UN meeting, the United Nations relies on its partnership with the NGO community “in virtually everything the world body does”.

“Whether it is peace-building in sub-Saharan Africa or human rights in Latin America, disaster assistance in the Caribbean or de-mining efforts in the Middle East, the United Nations depends upon the advocacy skills, creative resources and grass-roots reach of civil society organizations in all our work,” she said, paying a compliment to NGOs.

The NGOs playing a significant role in humanitarian assistance include Oxfam, CARE International, Doctors Without Borders, International Committee of the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, Save the Children, Action Against Hunger, among others,

During an event marking the 75th anniversary of the UN Charter in 2020, the current Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said civil society groups were a vital voice at the San Francisco Conference (where the UN was inaugurated 80 years ago).

“You have been with us across the decades, in refugee camps, in conference rooms, and in mobilizing communities in streets and town squares across the world.”

“You are with us today as we face the COVID-19 pandemic. You are our allies in upholding human rights and battling racism. You are indispensable partners in forging peace, pushing for climate action, advancing gender equality, delivering life-saving humanitarian aid and controlling the spread of deadly weapons”.

“And the world’s framework for shared progress, the Sustainable Development Goals, is unthinkable without you”, he declared.

But none of these platitudes have changed a longstanding UN policy of restricting NGO access to the UN during high-level meetings.

The annual ritual where civil society members are treated as political and social outcasts has always triggered strong protests. The United Nations justifies the restriction primarily for “security reasons”.

Currently there are over 6,400 NGOs in active consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
https://social.desa.un.org/issues/disability/cosp/list-of-non-governmental-organization-accredited-to-the-conference-of-states

Mandeep S. Tiwana, Secretary General, CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations, told IPS: “It’s really disappointing to see how year on year, civil society representatives who help the UN achieve its mandate, share its values and provide vital entry points to peoples’ needs and aspirations, are systemically excluded from the UN’s premises during UNGA week despite possessing valid annual security passes that are thoroughly vetted.”

Such blanket prohibitions on civil society representatives’ entry to the UN when momentous decisions and contentious debates are taking place are a missed opportunity to engage decision makers, he said.

“Such asymmetries in participation are the reason why many of us have been pushing for the appointment of a civil society envoy at the UN to enable better and more systemic involvement of civil society at the UN, ensure consistent engagement modalities across the UN system and drive the UN’s outreach to people around the world”.

“Despite, the UN Charter beginning with the words, ‘We the Peoples’, our call has fallen on deaf ears. It is well within the UN Secretary General’s power to appoint a civil society envoy that could be a legacy achievement, if realized,“ declared Tiwana.

Mads Christensen, Executive Director, Greenpeace International, told IPS: “We continue to believe in the UN and multilateralism as essential to achieving a green and peaceful future. Those in frontline communities and small island states most impacted by climate change must have their voices heard, as must young people whose very future is being decided. “

“We the peoples”, the opening words of the UN Charter, must not be reduced to “stakeholders consulted.” Civil society needs to be “in the room where it happens,” said Christensen.

Sanam B. Anderlini, Founder of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), told IPS: “I find the exclusion or NGOs from UNGA ironic and tragic.”

Globally, she pointed out, “ We have raised the alarm bells about conflict, human rights abuses, the desecration of international law. Our sector is also the strongest of supporters for the UN system itself.”

“We believe in the power and potential of multilateralism, and the need for a robust UN that adheres to the principles of peace and human security. Yet the system does not stand with us. “

Today more than ever, she argued, civil society globally is under pressure, politically, financially, systematically. “Yet we still persist with doing ‘what we can’ to address societal needs – as first responders to humanitarian crises, mitigating violence”.

As the powerful abrogate their responsibilities, the least powerful are taking on that responsibility to protect.

The UN should be embracing and enabling this sector’s participation at UNGA. Just as civil society is a champion of the UN, the UN should be a champion of civil society. Yet it seems that ‘We the People of the United Nations’ are not only being marginalized but over-securitized. How many security checks, how many grounds passes does each person need?, she asked.

“How tragic that those of us advocating for peace and justice are outside of the halls of power, while those waging wars, enabling genocide and trampling international laws are inside”.

“But we will be there. If our voices are absent within the UN, that absence itself will speak louder than any words”, she declared.

Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IPS: “The UN should resist efforts by authoritarian states to delegitimize and shut out affiliated civil society groups.”
As the organization is under dramatic pressure to implement cost-cutting reforms, seen in the UN80 initiative, he said, it really needs to seek stronger engagement with civil society, citizens, and the public at large, not less.

Not admitting NGO representatives during the UNGA general debate is another lost opportunity to make a mark, declared Bummel.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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The United Nations Turns 80: a Miracle it has Lasted So Long

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Opinion

SANTIAGO, Chile, Sep 12 2025 (IPS) – At eighty, the United Nations is bogged down by structural limitations and political divisions that render it powerless to act decisively – nowhere more clearly than in the Gaza genocide.

There is only one treaty in the world that, despite its limitations, binds nations together: the United Nations Charter. Representatives of fifty nations wrote and ratified the UN Charter in 1945, with others joining in the years that followed.

The charter itself only sets the terms for the behaviour of nations. It does not and cannot create a new world. It depends on individual nations to either live by the charter or die without it.

The charter remains incomplete. It needed a Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and even that was contested as political and civil rights had to eventually be separated from the social and economic rights. Deep rifts in political visions created fissures in the UN system that have kept it from effectively addressing problems in the world.

The UN is now eighty. It is a miracle that it has lasted this long. The League of Nations was founded in 1920 and lasted only eighteen years of relative peace (until World War II began in China in 1937).

The UN is only as strong as the community of nations that comprises it. If the community is weak, then the UN is weak. As an independent body, it cannot be expected to fly in like an angel and whisper into the ears of the belligerents and stop them.

The UN can only blow the whistle, an umpire for a game whose rules are routinely broken by the more powerful states. It offers a convenient punching bag for all sides of the political spectrum: it is blamed if crises are not solved and if relief efforts fall short. Can the UN stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza?

UN officials have made strong statements during the genocide, with Secretary General António Guterres saying that ‘Gaza is a killing field – and civilians are in an endless death loop’ (8 April 2025) and that the famine in Gaza is ‘not a mystery – it is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself’ (22 August 2025).

These are powerful words, but they have amounted to nothing, calling into question the efficacy of the UN itself.
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The UN is not one body but two halves. The most public face of the UN is the UN Security Council (UNSC), which has come to stand in as its executive arm. The UNSC is made up of fifteen countries: five are permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and the others are elected for two-year terms.

The five permanent members (the P5) hold veto power over the decisions of the council. If one of the P5 does not like a decision, they are able to scuttle it with their veto. Each time the UNSC has been presented with a resolution calling for a ceasefire, the United States has exercised its veto to quash even that tepid measure (since 1972, the United States has vetoed more than forty-five UNSC resolutions about the Israeli occupation of Palestine).

The UNSC stands in for the UN General Assembly (UNGA), whose one hundred and ninety-three members can pass resolutions that try to set the tone for world opinion but are often ignored. Since the start of the genocide, for instance, the UNGA has passed five key resolutions calling for a ceasefire (the first in October 2023 and the fifth in June 2025).

But the UNGA has no real power in the UN system. The other half of the UN is its myriad agencies, each set up to deal with this or that crisis of the modern age. Some predate the UN itself, such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which was created in 1919 and brought into the UN system in 1946 as its first specialised agency.

Others would follow, including the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which advocates for the rights of children, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which promotes tolerance and respect for the world’s cultures.

Over the decades, agencies have been created to advocate for and provide relief to refugees, to ensure nuclear energy is used for peace rather than war, to improve global telecommunications, and to expand development assistance. Their remit is impressive, although the outcomes are more modest.

Meagre funding from the world’s states is one limitation (in 2022, the UN’s total expenditure was $67.5 billion, compared with over $2 trillion spent on the arms trade).

This chronic underfunding is largely because the world’s powers disagree over the direction of the UN and its agencies. Yet without them, the suffering in the world would neither be recorded nor addressed. The UN system has become the world’s humanitarian organisation largely because neoliberal austerity and war have destroyed the capacity of most individual countries to do this work themselves, and because non-governmental organisations are too small to meaningfully fill in the gap.

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the entire balance of the world system changed and the UN went into a cycle of internal reform initiatives: from Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s An Agenda for Peace (1992) and An Agenda for Development (1994) and Kofi Annan’s Renewing the United Nations (1997) to Guterres’ Our Common Agenda (2021), Summit of the Future (2024), and UN80 Task Force (2025).

The UN80 Task Force is the deepest reform imaged, but its three areas of interest (internal efficiency, mandate review, and programme alignment) have been attempted previously (‘we’ve tried this exercise before’, said Under-Secretary-General for Policy and Chair of the UN80 Task Force Guy Ryder).

The agenda set by the UN is focused on its own organisational weaknesses and does not address the largely political questions that scuttle the UN’s work. A broader agenda would need to include the following points:

Move the UN Secretariat to the Global South. Almost all UN agencies are headquartered in either Europe or the United States, where the UN Secretariat itself is located. There have been occasional proposals to move UNICEF, the UN Population Fund, and UN Women to Nairobi, Kenya, which already hosts the UN Environment Programme and UN-Habitat.

It is about time that the UN Secretariat leave New York and go to the Global South, not least to prevent Washington from using visa denials to punish UN officials who criticise US or Israeli power. With the US preventing Palestinian officials from entering the US for the UN General Assembly, there have been calls already to move the UNGA meeting to Geneva. Why not permanently leave the United States?

Increase funding to the UN from the Global South. Currently, the largest funders of the UN system are the United States (22%) and China (20%), with seven close US allies contributing 28% (Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, and South Korea).

The Global South – without China – contributes about 26% to the UN budget; with China, its contribution is 46%, nearly half of the total budget. It is time for China to become the largest contributor to the UN, surpassing the US, which wields its funding as a weapon against the organisation.

Increase funding for humanitarianism within states. Countries should be spending more on alleviating human distress than on paying off wealthy bondholders. The UN should not be the main agency to assist those in need. As we have shown, several countries on the African continent spend more servicing debt than on education and healthcare; unable to provide these essential functions, they come to rely on the UN through UNICEF, UNESCO, and the WHO. States should build up their own capacity rather than depend on this assistance.

Cut the global arms trade. Wars are waged not only for domination but for the profits of arms dealers. Annual international arms exports are nearing $150 billion, with the United States and Western European countries accounting for 73% of sales between 2020 and 2024. In 2023 alone, the top one hundred arms manufacturers made $632 billion (largely through sales by US companies to the US military).

Meanwhile, the total UN peacekeeping budget is only $5.6 billion, and 92% of the peacekeepers come from the Global South. The Global North makes money on war, while the Global South sends its soldiers and policemen to try and prevent conflicts.

Strengthen regional peace and development structures.

To disperse some of the power from the UNSC, regional peace and development structures such as the African Union must be strengthened and their views given priority. If there are no permanent members in the UNSC from Africa, the Arab world, or from Latin America, why should these regions be held captive by the veto wielded by the P5? If the power to settle disputes were to rest more in regional structures, then the absolute authority of the UNSC could be somewhat diluted.

With the genocide unrelenting, another wave of boats filled with solidarity activists – the Freedom Flotilla – attempts to reach Gaza. On one of the boats is Ayoub Habraoui, a member of Morocco’s Workers’ Democratic Way Party who represents the International Peoples’ Assembly. He sent me this message:

What is happening in Gaza is not a conventional war – it is a slow-motion genocide unfolding before the eyes of the world. I am joining because deliberate starvation is being used as a weapon to break the will of a defenceless people – denied medicine, food, and water, while children die in their mothers’ arms. I am joining because humanity is indivisible. Whoever accepts a siege today will accept injustice anywhere tomorrow.

Silence is complicity in the crime, and indifference is a betrayal of the very values we claim to uphold. This flotilla is more than just boats – it is a global cry of conscience that declares: no to the siege of entire populations, no to starving the innocent, no to genocide. We may be stopped, but the very act of sailing is a declaration: Gaza is not alone. We are all witnesses to the truth – and voices against slow death.

Vijay Prashad is Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
https://thetricontinental.org/

IPS UN Bureau

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