Can the UN Be Saved? Lessons From a Forgotten Secretary-General
This week’s clashes at the UN have renewed questions about its role in the world. A new biography of U Thant recalls a time when it wielded real power.
Illustration: Richard A. Chance for Bloomberg
Last month a glum-looking United Nations secretary-general laid bare the organization’s staggering bureaucratic sprawl. The global body supported 27,000 meetings in 2024 alone, an average of almost 74 a day, and is drowning in its own paperwork. Security Council resolutions are three times longer than they were 30 years ago, and many among the avalanche of reports — 1,100 produced by the secretariat alone — go unread. “The sheer number of meetings and reports is pushing the system, and all of us, to the breaking point,” António Guterres said at a briefing in New York. Online, his remarks triggered gleeful derision. As one headline put it: “UN report finds United Nations reports are not widely read.”
As the UN turns 80, its astonishing bloat is just one of a myriad of challenges. The organization is strapped for cash, and deep funding cuts by US President Donald Trump are further straining its resources. Upstart multilateral groupings led by China have created a new crop of competitors. Richard Gowan, who oversees the International Crisis Group’s advocacy work at the UN, says the body seems unsure “where it fits in a universe of younger and more attractive alternatives.”