1787 is deeply committed to the United Nations.
We believe that the United Nations (UN) is integral in maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and upholding international law.
The United States contributed 22% of the UN's regular budget for 2019. That is a lot of money. Therefore, we must make certain that the UN is operating at a high level and utilizing every penny in the most optimal way. On January 1, 2019, the United Nations began the implementation of UN Secretary-General António Guterres' United to Reform, in the areas of Development, Management, and Peace and Security. We need to watch the outcomes of this closely to make sure these reforms are sufficient.
In 1945, the United Nations Charter was signed by fifty countries - led by Britain, China, the Soviet Union and the United States - in San Francisco, California. It is currently made up of 193 Member States. Under its Charter, "the United Nations can take action on the issues confronting humanity in the 21st century, such as peace and security, climate change, sustainable development, human rights, disarmament, terrorism, humanitarian and health emergencies, gender equality, governance, food production, and more. The UN also provides a forum for its members to express their views in the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, and other bodies and committees. By enabling dialogue between its members, and by hosting negotiations, the Organization has become a mechanism for governments to find areas of agreement and solve problems together."
The 15-member Security Council has five permanent members - Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States - and the other 10 members are elected for two-year terms (a certain number of seats are reserved for different regions of the globe).
It’s extremely important that the United States remain committed to the United Nations (UN). The UN is integral in maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and upholding international law.
That said, the United States contributed 22 percent of the UN’s regular budget for 2021. That is a lot of money. Therefore, we must make certain that the UN is operating at a high level and utilizing every penny in the most optimal way.
On January 1, 2019, the United Nations began the implementation of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ United to Reform, in the areas of Development, Management, and Peace and Security. We need to watch the outcomes of this closely to make sure these reforms are progressing sufficiently.
In a conversation with the International Peace Institute, Wolfgang Weiszegger, former Director of Mission Support for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), gave a positive view of the reform effort so far: “Managers have been empowered, accountability strengthened, processes streamlined, delegations of authority decentralized, and trust with member states improved, just to name a few… the management reforms have taken off, are on the right track, and emphasis must now be placed on keeping the momentum going.”
In the same conversation, Rick Martin, the Director of Division for Special Activities, UN Department of Operational Support (DOS) said that, although the UN was severely tested during the Covid-19 crisis – conducting peace operations in 9 of the 11 countries most affected by Covid-19, plus over 1,200 confirmed cases of Covid-19 within its ranks – the new reforms worked beautifully.
Among the successes, he cites “having supply chain management integrated across procurement and logistics management; aligning what has traditionally been the medical treatment capacities with occupational safety and health; creating a single entry point on uniform capability support for peace operations; having a more consolidated approach in standing capacities now for training; streamlining recruitment and onboarding processes; closing gaps in what resources peace operations are able to access on an immediate basis; providing support to the resident coordinators, who are now being brought into the Secretariat; establishing a standing search capacity of existing staff across the whole Secretariat that can be deployed to an incident or transitional requirement needing additional capacity; and “a genuine convergence between the Secretary-General’s reform pillars – management reform, peace and security architecture, and the development system reforms – which has been made possible by having a single Department of Operational Support.”