'UN is one institution that pulls every country together'
The single biggest criticism, of course, is that the United Nations is increasingly irrelevant in and to the modern world.
I could address that question at considerable length, really, but the short answer is that the UN is the one indispensable global body that we have in this world today.
The world is full of so many of what are called problems without passports, problems that cross frontiers and are not defined by boundaries geographic or manmade, problems so big that no one country, however powerful, can solve -- whether it is terrorism, or climate change, or human rights problems, refugee movements, drug trafficking, you name it.
In the world of today, you can pick so many issues that are by definition international problems or global problems, for which the solutions necessarily have to be international or global, and that is why the UN is so indispensable -- because it is the one institution we have that pulls every country together, to actually face the problems that confront us all, and at the same time gives us the opportunity to leverage the goodwill, the political will, and the resources of every country in the world rather than of just a handful.
So the UN, I believe, remains the best possible mechanism to tackle the world's problems.
Just to get a sense of your agenda -- given the power, what are the three things about the UN that you would change right now if you could?
There is no question that any organisation in the world that is run by 191 countries is a complex organisation to run, so one thing I would change is the extent to which the member states collectively play a role in micro-managing the day to day work of the organisation. It would help if those who are entrusted with the job of running the organisation were allowed to do so with a free hand, and that is something that should be judged by the results they deliver.
As a manager, I have personally experienced some of the frustrations of having one's hand, so to speak, tied as one tries to perform the functions of a manager, and that is one thing I would want to change on the administrative side.
The second thing I would ideally love to change, but which will be I think difficult to change, is the financial constraints that cripple the organisation -- because again, we are completely dependent on member states fulfilling their obligations to pay their dues in full, on time, and without conditions.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of members tend to pay late, to do so partially, and with a whole lot of conditions attached, and that means the organisation frequently goes through financial crises that a body that works for the entire world should not have to face.
These are both organisational issues, but the third thing, since you asked for three, would be much more about how the world functions vis a vis the UN. In the sense that I would like to see the world as a whole better able to respond to the kind of crises that confront the UN -- whether it is for example human rights violations on a colossal scale such as in Darfur, or whether it is the enormous calamities of nature such as the tsunami, the earthquake and so on.
The UN has a lot of accomplishments, but it needs reform -- not because it has failed, but because it has achieved enough to prove that it's worth investing in.
With all of these, the organisation needs to be better prepared to respond, but that is not just a question of having the money -- it is also having the political will of the countries to work effectively and in concert with the UN. I would like to help create a UN that is more nimble, more flexible, more efficient and more effective in facing the problems of the 21st century. So those are the three major areas I would like to change if I could.
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