The united nations was formed in 1945 after the 2nd World war ended, from the ashes of the League of nations formed in 1919 the following year after the 1st World War ended, the league of nations was spear headed by the then US President Woodrow Wilson. It is made up of all the sovereign countries of the world.
It has a 15 member security council which is the highest decision making body, 5 members are permanent, Britain, Russia, France, China and USA , the permanent members have veto power.
The UN is headed an elected Secretary General, who is considered as the world’s number 1 civil servant.
The UN has many organs/bodies like UNDP, UNESCO, UNEP ,UNCHR , FAO, etc. it also has special envoys. Each country has a permanent representative to the UN some have ambassadors.
It holds an annual general assembly (UNGA) where heads of government of all the member countries meet to deliberate on pressing global issues.
The president/head of government of a member country is selected to be the president of the UNGA for a particular year.
In my opinion the composition of the permanent membership of the UN security council is skewed and undemocratic.
What ever criteria that were used to select the current 5 members have been overtaken by events, the number should be increased to 8 or 10.
Each continent should produce a member ( 6 members ) other criteria like wealth/GDP, military power , political power , population etc can then be considered to bring in the other countries.
The above can now see countries like India, Japan , Germany making the list.
Then we can have an African member too.
There has been agitations for more democratic and lnclusive UN by African , South American and Asian countries.
The above agitations have yet to yield tangible results, except that the Secretary General position was zoned to some of these agitating continents in the past.
Through that arrangement Egyptian Boutrous Boutrous Ghali and Ghanaian Kofi Anan emerged Secretary General.
in the 90s Peruvian , Perez De Cueller, was Secretary General, we also had Banki Moon from China as Secretary General.
The current Secretary General is Antonio Gueteres, (former Portuguese Prime Minister.)
The agitations will continue until the structure and modus operandi of the UN is seen to be more democratic and inclusive
Written by a global affairs analyst
Dr. Josiah Ocheja
