By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 20 2025 – How would the UN80 Initiative, designed to mark the 80th Anniversary of the United Nations, turned out to be, if Kamala Harris had won the American presidential election in November last year?

As more details are emerging on plans being drawn by Secretary General António Guterres to drastically restructure and re-organize the whole United Nation system, I could not stop thinking about this question.

The UN has become a real “galaxy” of agencies, programs and offices, often with overlapping mandates and functions. Yet without a second Trump Administration, it is very likely that the UN80 Initiative would have taken a much different shape.

After all, the UN 2.0 blueprint, a timid proposal to reform and modernize the United Nations, developed in 2022 as a key pillar of the ambitious Our Common Agenda, never really took off.

A frank assessment would consider the UN 2.0 as a blueprint full of hype and catchy words but profoundly lacking substance.

Yet at least the UN 2.0 talked, even if in generic terms, about an important need that the United Nations should have taken care of: change its internal culture.

But instead of focusing only on the UN turning itself into a “forward thinking” organization as proposed in the blueprint, the cultural shift at the UN should be much more ambitious and radical.

Does the UN have to start to think and act as a startup organization? Perhaps it can help get rid of a red tape culture but at the same time, some caution might be welcome, considering also all the negative consequences stemming from embracing a venture capitalist approach to organizational culture.

That’s why the profound rethinking that now is under place at the UN should be grounded on simple values of humbleness and humility.

As shocking as they might seem, these two elements are the cornerstone of principled leadership and the UN, if it really wants to be a “lighthouse” in situations in which humanity and the planet face troubling dark times, these should be embedded in any new restructuring.

Over the years the UN has become aloof and remote even in places like in the so-called Global South where it has a strong presence and its mandate is generally well received by locals.

This situation can be emblematically thought of as a working culture that lacks responsiveness and does not do enough to reach out to the locals.

This is partly due to the UN’s mandate to work and assist with national governments but it has become an excuse to not engage civil society and the citizenry.

The problem, instead, is deeper and it starts with the fact that UN staff ended up, even unconsciously and involuntarily, as a “caste” of special “ones”.

I do not doubt the seriousness and commitment of the vast majority of UN personnel but the system is so flawed that it is inevitable that, no matter your good intentions, you end up being isolated from the ground reality.

As naïve as it might look, why do not we start from the basics? Are the highly paid jobs at the UN morally justified?

One thing is to have a good salary but another thing is to have perks and facilities that only the privileged “ones” are supposed to be entitled to. Then, why not tax the salaries of UN personnel?

These issues do snowball and become bigger and influence an entire working mindset and, at the end, they become deeply entrenched in the organizational culture of the UN.

Why is it so difficult to secure appointments with the UN officials or getting an answer for some ideas that have been proposed to them?

It is certainly impossible for the UN agencies and programs to entertain any requests, but, I do believe it would make sense for the UN to have a much more responsive approach.

Another example: why running events in four or five star hotels?

Again, this question could be shot down with disdain and as a trivial matter but, it is just a symptom of a much broader malaise that has a real outcome: a lot of wasted resources that could be better spent.

There is a broader acceptance, even if it will be hardly admitted, that the UN are neither responsive nor accountable. The discussions being prioritized at the moment by the UN SG are not tackling these underlying issues.

The ongoing debate is more about eliminating the vast amount of inefficiencies through merging and elimination of overlapping entities. It is not that these potential shake ups do not make sense.

It is actually welcome but, unless there is a deep reflection on how the UN can be really more accountable and transparent and accessible, the change won’t be as powerful as many hope.

Right at the top, most of the executive heads of agencies and programs are very well-meaning and committed professionals but many of them are former high level officials in their country of origin.

They have been accustomed to high offices that often are far removed from the ground reality. Therefore, they are not well suited to try to create efficiencies and re-tool the entire working approach. But the problem is also with the mandate of the United Nations.

Rather than focusing exclusively on assisting its member nations, the UN should also reposition its functions to do a much better job at partnering with civil society organizations. This also makes sense because freedoms are shrinking both in the North and in the South and overall democracy is in decline.

A more agile and humble UN could have a core mandate of supporting grassroots organizations and the whole civil society. A practical way to start doing it is for the UN to engage and consult more and better with the society at large, even when the hosting nations would not appreciate it.

I do often think that the UN as a system is oftentimes too submissive to the host governments even if the latter are recipients of huge amounts of assistance. It acts and obliges as if it did not have any negotiating powers.

To bring in efficiencies, moreover, the UN agencies and programs should stop being implementers on behalf of other donors.

It often happens that, at country levels, the offices of major UN agencies sign partnership agreements with bilateral agencies.

There are better practices to implement development assistance rather than relying on the “technical’ expertise of UN Agencies.

Why can’t bilateral agencies directly support civil society or why can’t the UN agencies only play a much more limited role? Instead of setting up whole teams made up by contracted officials, in effect long term consultants, why not truly support local NGOs in terms of organizational development and technical knowledge through a much more nimble approach?

All these proposals might be easily dismissed by those who have been thriving throughout the years in a system whose potential of real impact has been trimmed by a working culture that does not any more meet the thresholds set by the high purposes for which the UN were created.

But the status quo cannot continue.

Unfortunately, only Donald Trump could trigger a bold restricting of the UN. Merging and cutting agencies and programs should be one side of the revolution that Mr. Guterres has been forced to tackle.

Let’s not forget the less visible, perhaps softer side of the coin. Without eradicating a mindset that ended up self-justifying and self-promoting, the UN will cease to exist.

And this will be a real problem for our humanity.

That’s why the status quo at the UN must be defeated.

https://press.un.org/en/2025/sgsm22644.doc.htm

Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centered policy-making and a stronger and better United Nations.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, May 20 2025 – With President Trump’s efforts to end the Ukraine war, Europeans are now mainly responsible for prolonging it. Despite lame protestations of peace, Europe seems committed to fighting ‘to the last Ukrainian’.

Unsustainable peace
As Europe celebrated the end of the Nazi-initiated Second World War earlier in May, it does not seem to know how to sustain peace after war.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Both ‘world wars’ of the 20th century started in Europe as inter-imperialist wars, killing millions. In 1884-5, the Berlin Conference divided Africa among the dominant European powers.

After attending the Versailles palace negotiations following WW1, the young John Maynard Keynes’ The Economic Consequences of the Peace warned the agreement’s terms undermined a sustainable peace, almost anticipating Nazism’s later rise.

Towards the end of World War II (WW2), FDR’s Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, insisted Germany should not be allowed to re-industrialise after the War.

After starting and losing two world wars, German military aggression seemed unavoidable. For Morgenthau, reindustrialisation would inevitably lead Germany to war again.

For FDR, only postwar recovery for all would ‘win the peace’, not subjugating and destroying the loser.

His WW2 generals, famously Eisenhower, Marshall and MacArthur, imposed ‘pacifist’ constitutions and reforms for postwar growth on Germany and Japan.

Imperial oversight?
Despite his brilliant contemporaneous insights into the unsustainability of the peace secured at Versailles, Keynes ignored its outcome for China.

At Versailles, the Shandong peninsula, previously ruled by the Germans, was not returned to China, but given to Japan instead!

The resulting May 4th (1919) movement culminated in the Chinese revolution. Keynes was as blind to this as to WW2’s three million lives lost to the Bengal famine.

Although invisible in movies, tens of thousands from China were involved in WW1, mainly digging trenches for European troops in a war primarily remembered for trench warfare.

German possessions in southern Africa were not returned to Africans, but instead held ‘in trust’ by European powers, including the white South African regime.

While there have not been more ‘world wars’ since the end of the Cold War, there have been many more wars in the supposedly unipolar/multipolar world.

NATO v the UN
At the UN General Assembly, 141 countries condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But many also oppose North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expansion via Ukraine to threaten Russia.

This is reminiscent of broad international support for President John F Kennedy in 1962 when he insisted Soviet missiles be withdrawn from Cuba, just off Florida.

NATO was established for the Cold War and should have been dissolved at its end. Its raison d’être, the rival Warsaw Pact, was gone. Worse, NATO expansion continues while it conducts unlawful wars not sanctioned by the UN Security Council.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande have both confessed that the 2014 Minsk deal with the Russians was intended to buy time to arm Ukraine for war later, not to secure peace.

Similarly, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson successfully blocked negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in the last half-year of his tenure. A peace deal would have ended hostilities and saved hundreds of thousands of lives, mainly Ukrainian.

Europe has continued to insist on war despite worsening odds. And when NATO allies blew up the gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, no protests followed.

NATO should have been dissolved at the end of the Cold War, once its raison d’être, the rival Warsaw Pact, was gone.

Despite Europe’s pretensions of leading worldwide efforts against global warming, it quickly reversed earlier commitments, even abandoning its 2021 Glasgow commitment to reject coal less than half a year later.

Unsurprisingly, the Global South remains sceptical of the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), perhaps only the latest form of European trade protectionism.

The EU has already worsened world economic conditions by raising interest rates, imposing illegal sanctions, insisting on fiscal austerity and cutting social spending in favour of military expenditure.

European leaders now proudly announce military Keynesian policies, expecting growth from more war spending. Thus, the turn to war has meant less growth and more inequality.

A non-aligned South?
FDR envisaged a peaceful new multilateral order offering progress for all. But such hopes have been squelched by political pressures for informal empire abetted by a resurgent military-industrial complex.

A different world is needed based on much stronger commitments to peace, freedom and non-alignment. It may be time for the West, the Global North and others to learn from the South-East.

In 1955, Indonesia hosted the Afro-Asian summit in Bandung, which boldly spoke for the post-colonial South and made the case for non-alignment as the Cold War began.

Over half a century ago, in 1973, the Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), set up in 1967, committed to creating a zone of peace, freedom and neutrality (ZOPFAN).

Creating the enabling conditions for ongoing cooperation, development, and progress can help sustain the bases for a peaceful and progressive new world order.

IPS UN Bureau

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By External Source
MARJA DISTRICT, HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan, May 20 2025 – Bibi Gul, a pregnant woman from Helmand’s Marja District, walked two hours to reach the nearest health center in search of treatment for her moderate malnutrition.

“Our economic situation is not very bad,” she said upon arrival. “But the doctors told me that if I don’t treat my malnutrition or eat fortified foods during pregnancy, my children will also be born malnourished. Still, we dare not talk about this at home.”

Her story is far from unique in Afghanistan, where hunger continues to devastate millions. According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), an estimated 15 million Afghans urgently need food assistance to survive. Yet the agency is severely underfunded and unable to meet the growing demand.

Afghanistan’s largely rural and agrarian population depends on subsistence farming. With limited access to healthcare and a weak transportation infrastructure, food insecurity and poor health outcomes are widespread—particularly for women and children.

“I’ve been working to prevent malnutrition in this province for nearly five years,” says Dr. Esmatullah, a health inspector overseeing nutrition programs in Helmand. “Ignorance is a major driver. In remote areas, most mothers don’t know how to change their diets during pregnancy, and often, the male head of the household doesn’t understand the issue either.”

The situation in Helmand Province reflects a nationwide crisis. Home to around 1.5 million people, Helmand is one of Afghanistan’s largest provinces. Most families rely on small-scale farming, and many cannot afford the cost of traveling long distances to reach medical care.

Recent data paints a bleak picture: one in four children in Helmand suffers from moderate to severe acute malnutrition. An estimated 40 percent of pregnant and lactating women are also moderately malnourished. Experts attribute the crisis to food shortages, infectious diseases, and low awareness of basic nutritional needs.

Staffing shortages further complicate the response. Although nearly 2,500 people work in Helmand’s health sector, only 310 are dedicated to nutrition services. As a result, many malnutrition cases go undetected or untreated. A recent study found that, on average, just 10 children and eight women receive nutritional support each day in clinics across the province—a fraction of those in need.

Helmand has approximately 159 health facilities, including hospitals and primary clinics. But long distances, a lack of vehicles, and limited resources prevent many families from accessing them.

Acute Malnutrition (GAM) level among children under five in Helmand is 18 percent, which is above the World Health Organization’s critical threshold of 15 percent.

Officials are nevertheless trying to bring the situation under control in spite of the acute lack of resources and the gravity of the situation, says Dr. Madina, who works in the maternal and child nutrition department at a health centre in the Gereshk district of Helmand province.

“We implement nutrition programs to manage moderate acute malnutrition and severe acute malnutrition”, she says.

Dr. Madina says they distribute ready-to-use food supplements to manage the dietary requirement of children under six months and older suffering from moderate acute malnutrition.

Ready-to-use supplementary food and super cereals are also supplied to pregnant and lactating mothers. They also conduct awareness programmes on proper nutrition and healthcare in health centres, according to Madina.

“Malnutrition rates are alarmingly high here,” says Dr. Madina. “It’s heartbreaking when women come from remote areas with their children, hoping for help, while our resources remain limited.”

To reduce the problem, inter-sectoral cooperation and the implementation of comprehensive nutrition and support programs are essential, experts say.

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, May 20 2025 – The argument for nuclear disarmament is perhaps more relevant than it has been since the end of World War II, especially in a world where there is a growing gulf between nuclear states and between nuclear states and those who don’t have the weapons.

In an event held at the sidelines of the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) (April 28-May 9), a panel of experts deliberated over how nuclear disarmament must be achieved in the modern day. The panel was co-organized by Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan to the United Nations in New York.

As new conflicts break out and pre-existing conflicts seem to drag on and escalate, there is a greater need for global parties to reach consensus on security matters, including the place of nuclear weapons in a post-Cold War era. William Potter, the director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, expressed concern about the “erosion” of the norms for nuclear weapons.

“To say the least, the world is in a state of disarray. It’s hard to distinguish traditional allies from adversaries,” said Potter.

Potter remarked on a “growing gulf” between nuclear states—countries that possess nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction—and non-nuclear states when it comes to the urgency with which the issue of nuclear disarmament needs to be addressed.

“It is not the nuclear weapon itself… rather, the true adversary lies in the thinking that rationalizes and justifies the use of nuclear weapons,” said Chie Sunda, SGI’s Director of Disarmament and Human Rights. “It’s the dangerous mindset to annihilate others when they’re perceived as a threat or an obstacle to their objective. It is that way of thinking that disregards the sanctity of life, [which] we must collectively defend.”

Even as some global powers debate over relaxing the restrictions on nuclear weapon deployment, there are still effective, diplomatic tools that are being employed to promote disarmament. One such example is the Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zones, as codified in region-specific treaties.

Countries across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia agree not to possess nuclear arms or conduct testing. For non-nuclear states, these zones allow them to “[assert] their agency” and “the right to dictate how their regional security is formulated,” according to Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, Japan Chair for a World Without Nuclear Weapons (VCDNP). She further added that these nuclear-free zones limit the freedom of action of nuclear states by forcing them to respect the treaties that protect them.

The panel also advocated for giving more credence to a ‘no first use’ policy, in which a nuclear power refrains from using nuclear weapons when engaged in warfare with another nuclear power.

So far, China is the only nuclear power and P5 Member State that has a ‘no first use’ policy, meaning they would only use nuclear weapons in retaliation against a nuclear attack. 

India has a ‘no first use’ policy, but it includes a caveat that allows for a response to biological or chemical weapons.

Meanwhile, the other P5 members—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France—along with other nuclear powers, such as Pakistan and North Korea, maintain policies that permit the first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict.

By giving further credence to a ‘no first use’ pledge that countries can adopt, this could prevent misunderstandings and miscalculations that could lead to a devastating result. In such deliberations on nuclear treaties, there need to be what Director and Deputy to the High Representative of the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), Adedeji Ebo, referred to as “confidence-building dialogues,” which can be achieved through enhancing reporting and transparency measures.

This year’s PrepComm began with a discussion on the issue. Alexander Kmentt, Director of the Disarmament, Arms Control, and Non-Proliferation Department of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, argued that in NPT deliberations, nuclear states seemed to have greater political priority and are more inclined to maintain the status quo because their possession of nuclear weapons provides them a sense of security. This presents a power imbalance.

Meetings like this year’s NPT PrepComm and the Meeting of State Parties on the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons must also create environments where delegations and other stakeholders are well-informed and can speak with authority.

Ebo argued that non-nuclear states are “indispensable” for “achieving meaningful progress in nuclear disarmament.”

Umbrella states—countries that have nuclear protection agreements with nuclear powers—should leverage their positions and extend support to non-nuclear states in their nonproliferation stances.

There is a need to “demystify the nuclear conversation,” Ebo remarked. Diplomats and other experts that will deal with nuclear issues need to be properly informed about this matter. He also spoke of the potential power that comes from regular citizens and grassroots movements to hold their elected leaders accountable on the matter of nuclear disarmament. By bringing this issue to the attention of their elected officials, it becomes “difficult to ignore.”

“The nuclear issue is too important to be left to the states alone,” he said.

Disarmament and nonproliferation education is being carried out through nongovernmental organizations and advocacy groups, such as SGI.

Since 1957, nuclear disarmament has been part of SGI’s broader agenda for promoting the culture of peace. Sunada remarked that education plays a role in fostering “powerful, transnational solidarity” among people. To that end, SGI has organized and facilitated speaking engagements with hibakusha—survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings—to share their experiences with both Japanese and foreign audiences, along with workshops that reach over 10,000 people a year.

The panel recognized efforts toward nuclear disarmament through global diplomacy and grassroots movements. For nuclear treaties to be upheld and respected, perhaps at their core there should be a shared understanding of what constitutes a nuclear taboo, whether it prohibits the first use of nuclear weapons in warfare or if it is a complete prohibition.

Mukhatzhanova pointed out that understanding seems to vary among different groups, from policymakers and diplomats to academia and the general public and suggested that it could be beneficial to deliberate and debate on common ground for the NPT 2026 Review Conference.

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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