5 ways the United Nations makes a difference

‘Often without attracting attention, the United Nations and its family of agencies are engaged in a vast array of work that seeks to improve people’s lives around the world. Child survival and development. Environmental protection. Human rights. Health and medical research. Alleviation of poverty and economic development. Agricultural development and fisheries. Education. The advancement of women. Emergency and disaster relief. Air and sea travel. Peaceful uses of atomic energy. Labour and workers’ rights. The list goes on…’

(from: Sixty ways the United Nations makes a difference)

1. Promoting Development
- Working towards eradicating poverty and improving the living standards of all peoples throughout the world
- The UN’s overall annual expenditure on development is $10billion. Virtually all these funds comes from money donated by countries

2. Providing Aid and Assistance to Refugees
- UN relief agencies together provide aid and protection to some 23.3million refugees and displaced persons world wide
- The UN provides food, shelter, medical aid, education and repatriation assistance

 

3. Provide Safe Drinking Water
- Between 1981-1990 more than a billion people gained access to safe drinking water
- Between 1990-2002 1.1 billion people gained access to safe drinking water
- Between 2005-2015 the UN aims to reduce by half the number of people without access to safe drinking water

4. Providing tsunami relief
- Within 24hrs of the tsunami hitting the Indian Ocean the UN disaster and assessment co-ordination teams had been dispatched to assist survivors
- In the first six months of its relief operations it provided food to over 1.7 million people, shelter to more than 1.1 million made homeless and vaccinated over 1.2 million children against measles preventing the outbreak of disease and further loss of life.

5. Combating Terrorism
-Under the UN 13 legal instruments have been negotiated to address and prevent terrorism
- The UN has a Counter-Terrorism Committee to ensure countries fulfil their commitments made after the sept 11th attacks. Such commitments include not funding or supporting terrorist groups.
- The UN is currently drafting a new comprehensive convention against terrorism to improve global anti-terrorism efforts