Eurasia Group | What's the UN Good For, Anyway?
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What's the UN Good For, Anyway?

Eurasia Live
22 September 2016
UNGA
What's the un good for,
anyway?
It's UN General Assembly week here in New York. Leaders from around the world are gathering for another week of speeches. But given setbacks Syria and well-documented accounts of inefficiency and bureaucracy, why should we care?
 

Eurasia Group's Global Macro director, Willis Sparks, mounts a defense.

Full transcript below. 

It's UN General Assembly week here in New York. Leaders from around the world are gathering for another week of speeches.

Who cares? Well… New Yorkers care. Because all the added security makes this an epic traffic nightmare all over Manhattan every September. Ask any New York cab driver what he thinks of the UN General Assembly, and you'll get an earful.

And most of the time, the UN seems pretty dysfunctional. Scandals, stories about waste, endless bureaucracy. The most powerful countries veto each other's plans.

But let's take a minute here. It's easy to be cynical, right, but UN agencies are actually doing some important things.

Like feeding tens of millions of hungry people in dozens of countries. That's what the World Food Program does.

Like working at the front lines of the fight against Ebola, Malaria, the Zika virus, and HIV. That's what the World Health Organization does.

Like providing food, vaccines, safe water, education, and mental health care for millions of kids. That's what UNICEF does.

Like helping tens of millions of refugees with food and shelter. That's what the UN Refugee Agency does.

Like fighting for standards of safety and fairness for workers who have no allies. That's what the International Labor Organization does.

Like helping poor countries get credits and low-interest loans to help them build roads, bridges, ports, schools, and hospitals. That's what the World Bank does.

These are all agencies of the United Nations, and there are many more doing important work.

So here's the thing …. The United Nations has had a lot of failures and a lot of problems.

But in our unpredictable and violent world, who else is going to provide all these things for people who really need them?

Something to think about while you're sitting in traffic.
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