When President Donald Trump asked the UN General Assembly in September, “What is the purpose of the United Nations?” he wasn’t posing a philosophical question. He was announcing a policy shift. Weeks later, Ambassador Jeff Bartos addressed the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee, praising Secretary-General António Guterres’s proposed budget cuts as “only a beginning.” The Trump […]
Author: Jordan Ryan
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Today’s global challenges—including climate shocks, geopolitical conflicts, mass displacement, and the rapid spread of disruptive technologies—are more interconnected than at any point in the UN’s history. Addressing them demands a United Nations that works as a single, coherent system. The secretary-general’s new report on UN reform, “Shifting Paradigms: United to Deliver,” is the latest, most […]
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The 80th anniversary of the United Nations should have been a celebration. Instead, it has become a reckoning.At the heart of that reckoning is the Mandate Implementation Review (MIR), a quietly released but deeply consequential report that diagnoses a long-festering problem inside the UN system: mandate overload. Since 1946, more than 40,000 resolutions have been […]
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When the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco 80 years ago, the United States was not just the host—it was the architect. American leadership helped craft a vision of peace secured not through domination but through cooperation. “We the peoples,” the Charter begins—a declaration that global dignity, development, and security would be shared […]
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This article looks at five priorities for UN80 reforms based on the outcomes of the 2021 UN Integration Review. The article suggests that reforms cannot be measured by departments merged or posts abolished, but by whether the UN delivers more coherent, effective, and principled support to those it serves. This will require reform not only of structure, but of behavior, leadership, and the compact with member states.
