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United Nations: A Humanitarian Answer to Security

As the United Nations opened its 61st General Assembly, its leaders stressed a different threat than bombs or guns. The main danger the international body should focus on, they suggest, is not the violent religious extremism that has received so much attention in recent years, but a more lingering, subtle, and arguably more devastating issue—poverty. Currently, researchers estimate that half the world—or roughly three billion people—are living on the equivalent of less than two American dollars per day. With such a large number of the world’s citizens struggling to acquire the basic necessities of life, the new U.N. president, Sheikha Haya Rashid Al-Khalifa, made alleviating poverty one of the main focuses of her agenda. Though she did acknowledge that fighting terrorism and mediating world conflicts should be a major aspect of U.N. policy, Sheikha Haya’s main goals seem for the most part humanitarian. In her address, she highlighted the need for further UN reforms, greater emphasis on the new Peacebuilding Coalition and Human Rights Council, and expanding women’s rights.

[clockwise from top left] 1.) The flag of the United Nations. 2.) Kofi Annan’s term as Secretary-General of the U.N. is ending. 3.) The U.N. Headquarters located within New York, USA is lined with the flags from each of the 192 member nations. 4.) The U.N. General Assembly, where the nations meet to discuss matters affecting the globe. The work of the Security Council is performed by a much smaller group, where any of the five permanent members of the U.N. may veto any security resolution. The five permanent members, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China, were also the five main victors of World War II, and the only five countries to have nuclear weapons until recently.

However, for Al-Khalifa and other U.N. leaders, this humanitarian emphasis is not a departure from the objectives of increasing world security and eliminating terrorism. Several leaders, including the exiting Secretary-General Kofi Annan, expressed the belief that the U.N. goals of humanitarianism and security are, in fact, closely linked. In his speech at the opening of the 61st General Assembly, Swiss President Moritz Leuenberger stated, “The cause of every military conflict and every terrorist attack can ultimately also be traced back to economic inequalities. They are the source of all tensions on our earth. That is why we must do our utmost to fight poverty, economic despair and political apathy.” He also gave the warning, “Should the U.N. fail in its humanitarian task … desperation and the tendency towards violence increase and intensify conflicts. This can be witnessed with brutal clarity in the Middle East or in Darfur.” Al-Khalifa explained, similarly, that no strategy to fight terrorism with force alone could be successful, but that deeper underlying issues such as poverty and illiteracy must be addressed. She suggested that the U.N. focus its anti-terror efforts not only through traditional means of combating violence, but also through widespread education and humanitarian aid efforts that, she argues, will help curb violent extremist trends.

These statements suggest that the theme of this 61st U.N. General Assembly will be a greater commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) that the body has put forward. These eight goals, intended to be complete by 2015, all address the humanitarian component of the U.N.’s mission. They are:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
4. Reduce child mortality.
5. Improve maternal health.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
8. Develop a global partnership for development.

The first goal aims to reduce poverty and hunger worldwide by half before the 2015 deadline, and the others tout similarly ambitious aspirations.

However, according to the Global Policy Forum, many researchers doubt the likelihood of meeting this deadline, and some go so far as to say they doubt the goals will be met in one hundred years, let alone less than ten. Many countries—including the United States—have thus far failed to contribute the 0.7% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that they originally promised the U.N. in September 2000. As the years go by, the prospects of producing $40-$60 billion per year—the amount the Borgen Project estimates is necessary to achieve the goals by the deadline—further diminish.

At the opening of the U.N.’s 61st General Assembly, it is clear that the body’s leadership remain dedicated to these goals, even amidst criticism of their feasibility and demands for focus on issues seen by many as perhaps more pressing—such as the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea and the recent attempts by Al-Qaeda to attack from British soil. Five years after the events of September 11, 2001, national security and the elimination of terrorist and nuclear threats have remained paramount in the minds of most Americans and much of the world, and criticism of the U.N., particularly in recent times, has extended past its apparent failures with the Millennium Development Goals and other humanitarian efforts and centered largely on its foreign policy failures. Many have lamented the U.N.’s ineffectiveness at curbing terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and genocide, with often less emphasis on the body’s capacity or responsibility to achieve humanitarian initiatives.

The U.N. itself, however, as evidenced by the statements of both its new and exiting leaders, is attempting to help free itself from some of the pressure of these security issues by conflating them with its humanitarian goals, hoping in that way to achieve both ends of its original mission as envisioned by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Allied leaders at the close of the Second World War. That global conflict highlighted not only the need for a strong international body to help resolve issues of violence, but also a body that would protect the interests of the weak, disenfranchised, and helpless. It is perhaps only now that the international body it helped generate is beginning to truly recognize an essential interconnection between these two aims.

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