Source : AP News

The United Nations, a collaborative global dream built into reality out of the ashes of World War II, marks its 80th anniversary this month. There’s little to celebrate.

Its clout on the world stage is diminished. Facing major funding cuts from the United States and others, it has been forced to shed jobs and start tackling long-delayed reforms. Its longtime credo of “multilateralism” is under siege. Its most powerful body, the Security Council, has been blocked from taking action to end the two major wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

And as the latest conflict between Israel, Iran and the United States flared, it watched from the sidelines.

Four generations after its founding, as it tries to chart a new path for its future, a question hangs over the institution and the nearly 150,000 people it employs and oversees: Can the United Nations remain relevant in an increasingly contentious and fragmented world?

With its dream of collaboration drifting, can it even survive?

When the United Nations was born in San Francisco on June 26, 1945, the overriding goal of the 50 participants who signed the U.N. Charter was stated in its first words: “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”

Earlier this year, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sounded that same theme: “Eight decades later, one can draw a direct line between the creation of the United Nations and the prevention of a third world war.”

There has been no such war — thus far. But conflicts still rage.

They continue not only in Gaza and Ukraine but Sudan, eastern Congo, Haiti and Myanmar – to name a few – and, most recently, Iran and Israel. The needs of tens of millions of people caught up in fighting and trapped in poverty have increased even as rich donor nations, not just the United States, are reducing their aid budgets.

The U.N. General Assembly is planning a commemoration on the 80th anniversary on June 26. This week an exhibition on the San Francisco meeting opened at U.N. headquarters with a rare centerpiece — the original U.N. Charter, on loan from the U.S. National Archives in Washington.

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