Eight Decades On, the UN Charter Is Still Saving Us From Hell

“It has been said that the United Nations was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.” That quote, now famous, first appeared in a speech by the second UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, in 1954. Put simply, it was a speech pleading for the international community to keep striving for peace. Messy, difficult, complicated peace.

The task back then was clear: Avoid a third world war. Less than ten years earlier, still reeling from the horrors of the second, the Holocaust, and the nuclear attacks on Japan, leaders came together to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” as the UN Charter pledges. Today, we mark 80 years since the signing of that document, on June 26, 1945.

Eight decades on, it’s worth reminding ourselves: We can draw a direct line between the creation of the United Nations and the prevention of a third world war. And while the UN also represents humanity’s highest aspirations — human rights, equality, dignity, justice, and the rule of law — it was not created to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.

The UN’s vision is of all humanity living in peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet. A decade ago, in 2015, the world agreed on a roadmap to achieve that vision. We call them the Sustainable Development Goals. When we talk about sustainable development, we mean that no one on our wealthy planet should go hungry. No person should die from lack of clean drinking water, or medicine. No child should miss out on learning.

It is a vision shared by the vast majority of people on earth.

Imagine for a minute that you were on a ship and you saw someone fall overboard. The vast majority of us would throw a rope to save that person from drowning. The United Nations is the mechanism we made to throw that rope. Pulling vulnerable people out of misery. Stabilizing nations in crisis. Preventing wars. Stopping the spread of disease.

Thanks to the generosity of key donors, the UN and its humanitarian partners threw a life-saving rope to 128 million people in 2023. This work is done via our UN agencies, supporting tens of millions of people, year, by year, by year, for the past 80 years.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, helps 117 million fleeing war, famine and persecution.

WFP, the UN World Food Programme, feeds 160 million across 120 countries and territories.

UNICEF, the UN children’s fund, has saved more than 150 million lives over five decades with childhood vaccines.

WHO, the World Health Organization, and UNAIDs, prevent the spread of deadly diseases such as HIV or Ebola.

This, and much, much more. Yet there’s a serious problem: The needs in our deeply troubled world are looming larger than ever. We have long been urging donors to provide a longer, stronger rope to save more people from drowning.

To get food to those facing acute hunger — more than 250 million last year.

To get help to those impacted by war — a figure that now includes 20% of the world’s children.

To get shelter to those forced out of their homes — now more than 122 million, almost double what it was 10 years ago.

But instead the rope is fraying. For years, the UN has been facing a liquidity crisis due to the fact that some Member States do not pay their dues in full, or on time. Now things are about to get dramatically worse. Rather than reinforce the ties that bind humanity together, some donors are wielding a knife. UN agencies, along with many humanitarian and development NGOs, are reeling from severe and drastic cuts. We are profoundly alarmed. These cuts are already having very concrete and very dramatic consequences for the people we serve.

In Afghanistan, more than 9 million people are now missing out on health and protection services.

In north-east Syria, 2.5 million people in need of help are being left to suffer.

In war-torn Ukraine, 1 million people risk having their cash assistance suspended.

In Bangladesh, desperate people living in Cox’s Bazaar, the world’s largest refugee camp, are facing reduced food rations.

And in South Sudan, funding has run out for programmes to support people who have fled the conflict in neighbouring Sudan, leaving border areas dangerously overcrowded.

All this, as the climate emergency is being left to spiral beyond human control, threatening the health, peace, and future survival of everyone on earth. A better world is possible. We are urging all donors to reconsider their contribution to our life-saving work. At the same time we are striving to make the global humanitarian effort as efficient, accountable and innovative as possible, while continuing to save lives.

You may have seen headlines about our UN80 Initiative. This is an ambitious and far-reaching undertaking to ensure that the UN is fit for purpose, and to support the multilateralism of the future by making improvements in the way we work.

Last year, world leaders agreed on three historic documents: The Pact for the Future, and its annexes, the Global Digital Compact, and the Declaration for Future Generations. Adopted by all Member States, they lay out a blueprint for a better world and a reformed United Nations.

Now we are calling on Member States to make good on those promises. Help update and reform our structures, and deliver what our world so desperately needs: A global emergency responder for the most vulnerable, a forum to resolve disputes peacefully, a system of rules, norms and values that we all agree on, and a comprehensive plan to curb global temperature rise and maintain humanity’s only home.

Our world is facing challenges on every front. Since the United Nations reflects that world in all its aspects, we feel it in all our work. We are pursuing reforms at a time when geopolitical divisions and mistrust are blocking international cooperation and the multilateral system itself.

We are urgently seeking ways to ensure that we keep our most essential promises. To do what we can to save lives, to remain steadfast and committed to security and stability, and to hold the line against the backsliding on human rights.

The UN is calling on all donors to help humanity rise to the challenge of this moment: Defend our common values. Fund our programs. Rally behind the rule of law.

UN budgets are so much more than numbers on a balance sheet, they are a matter of life and death for millions around the world. UN ambitions are so much more than dry reports and targets, they are the sum of our highest humanitarian values.

Those values, laid down 80 years ago in the UN Charter, are based on the core principles that we will never abandon — for the good of all humanity, and those yet to come.