IPS: U.N. at 75: Slow Death or a New Direction — Part 2
Mark Malloch‐Brown, co-chair of the U.N. Foundation and the International Crisis Group and member of the advisory committees to the heads of the IMF and UNICEF

“…The world needs to believe the U.N. matters. That it is relevant. The U.N. still enjoys high levels of support in Pew and other surveys. Yet that support seems heavily aspirational — around what it ought to do; not what it does. … For its 75th … the U.N. undertook a survey of a million respondents supplemented by independent polling by Pew and Edelman Intelligence as well the latter’s analysis of social and traditional media coverage in 70 countries. What comes through clearly is that across very different national economies and circumstances there is a demand for the better delivery of basic services, notably at the moment health; protection of the environment and containing climate change; honest accountable government that delivers and protects its citizens. This is already the U.N.’s agenda. … What I have laid out … is a call for the U.N. to seize the moment and take advantage of the opportunities it has at this moment of global crisis to recover relevance and to drive a new global consensus on tackling our collective weaknesses that Covid has so cruelly exposed. There is a majority out there for a better governed and prepared, more caring and inclusive world but that same majority has grown terminally impatient with existing institutions. The U.N. can be part of that failed past or attach itself to an emerging future. Let the Campaign begin.” Part one of this piece can be found here (11/4).