World leaders arriving in New York to mark the 80th anniversary of the United Nations need to confront one overriding fact: war and impunity, not peace and cooperation, are on the march.
The U.N. was created to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” but in 2025 there were more armed conflicts than at any time since 1945. These 59 active conflicts are not just humanitarian emergencies, they are political emergencies. Around the world, international politics are trending towards fragmentation and competition—a far cry from the unity and action evoked by this year’s U.N. theme, “Building our Future Together.”
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There are three poles to the debate about what should be done. Unfortunately they continue to pull us in divergent directions.
The division of international diplomacy
First, the U.N. system is prioritizing bureaucratic reform in the name of efficiency. There are proposals for agencies to be merged, mandates reduced, headcounts pruned. This is worthwhile, but incremental.
Meanwhile the U.S. government and some of its allies have declared parts of the U.N. system beyond the pale. The Trump Administration is withdrawing from agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO), spurning agreements to protect the climate, denying standing to the U.N. in famine-stricken Gaza, and slashing funding from the aid system. Undermining international diplomacy in these ways creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of defensiveness and inadequacy.
The third pole was evident in Beijing earlier this month. President Xi declared China to be the bulwark of the multilateral system, but at the same time embraced leaders of Russia and North Korea who are in flagrant violation of multilateral rules.
None of this offers hope to people in Sudan, Gaza, or Ukraine for whom U.N. action is the last hope. More than three-quarters of the way through 2025, the foreign aid needed for Sudan, the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, affecting 30 million people, is less than 25% funded. Words are cheap but too often absent: the crisis in Sudan was mentioned only eight times in the approximately 16,000 words spoken during speeches by the Permanent Members of the Security Council at last year’s General Assembly debate
Nor has the U.N. met the moment of pressing global threats. Secretary General Guterres’ idea of a treaty on AI weaponry is stillborn. Investment in pandemic preparedness is back to pre-COVID levels.
Having just come from Sudan, I have also seen first-hand the consequences of stalled mediation processes and inadequate collective efforts at humanitarian relief: the Sudan conflict is metastasizing, engaging more and more neighboring countries.
The U.N.’s mission
At a time when governments appear unable or unwilling to come together to address big problems, we need to take inspiration from the opening words of the U.N. Charter: “We the peoples of the United Nations.”
That charter set out the rights of states under international law, but it also lays out the commitment to promoting and protecting fundamental human rights. Today, the moral authority designed to flow from the UN’s service to humanity is in danger of being lost to the abuse of veto power, bureaucratic drift, withdrawal, aid cuts and political compromise. We need to bring people, civil society, back to the center of the multilateral system.
The U.N. reflects the politics of its member states. The danger today is that the worst of national interests prevent genuine problems from being addressed and solutions being advanced. One area where the U.N. has patent locus, and where progress should be possible, concerns where aid is spent, what it is spent on, how it is delivered, and how it is funded. Civil society has been driving solutions forward—in spite of political gridlock. And while treating the symptoms of conflict is no substitute for tackling its roots, it is essential given the dramatic rise in conflict today.
A case in point concerns the issue of the moment: famine and humanitarian crisis in Sudan and Gaza. An estimated 45 million children are affected in regions such as these. Today, famine is one of the leading causes of mortality in children under 5 worldwide. Yet the current treatment and delivery system is unnecessarily bifurcated, with two U.N. agencies involved (UNICEF and World Food Programme), using two products (Ready to Use Therapeutic Food and ready to Use Supplementary Food) to treat severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) separately. In total, we estimate that around 80% of acutely malnourished children in conflict do not get help from this complicated system.
In the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, where climate shocks and conflict converge, the IRC is treating acute malnutrition at the community level using a simplified, integrated protocol for the treatment of severe and moderate acute malnutrition that cuts treatment costs by up to 30%. On a global scale this system would allow treatment of millions more children with the same resources. These are transformative, scalable interventions, and they demonstrate what’s possible when civil society is enabled—not constrained—by the aid system.
Vaccination provides another example. The IRC’s REACH project, in partnership with GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, has delivered over 20 million vaccine doses to zero and under-immunized children in the hardest-to-reach areas in four East African countries through a localized approach that works in conflict zones, negotiating with conflicting parties, rather than ignoring them. The cost is only $4 per vaccine shot. When REACH launched in 2022, a mere 16% of the over 150 target communities were accessible to humanitarian actors. By negotiating access, that figure is now 96%. The GAVI model is a prime example of how civil society, with the support of the private sector, the U.N. and committed governments, can deliver life-saving interventions at scale in communities mired in worsening humanitarian crises.
Civil society does not hold a magic key. But it can address the consequences of political failure, and promote remedies. That is why, as the U.N. turns 80, the former Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy has called for “plurilateral” action, involving not just nation states, but also civil society, and the private sector.
What is needed is the resources and political backing. With more resources available to do good than ever before in human history, we the people need to be ready to step up.
The United Nations is a great idea. It has an inspiring mission. Now it needs to fullfil it.