It’s the beginning of a new semester and a new year, and while most of us are making plans to improve and embark on fresh starts, there’s one institution that doesn’t seem to be doing so: the United Nations. It’s not that I enjoy poking fun at an institution with good intentions, but when it was recently discovered the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe published a 44-page report explaining the standards for how to prepare llama meat cuts for trade, the U.N.’s notorious inefficiency was again brought to light.
Rather than leaving the design of food standards to the World Health Organization or the Food and Agriculture Organization, branches of the U.N. that seem more fit to take on such tasks, the Economic Commission took it upon itself to do so. It’s an action that served to highlight the poor allocation of tasks and lack of clear goals within the branches of the U.N.
It’s not even that the U.N. is being harmlessly useless, withering away into obscurity while its deteriorating objectives become a popular subject of sarcastic mockery. The U.N. is a huge institution comprised of 192 states, and it’s expensive. Obscene amounts of money are required to carry out the activities of the U.N., such as more than 10,000 meetings and 632 training workshops held in 2009 in just Geneva branch of the U.N. alone. Every member state pays dues based on its ability to pay, taking into account population size and wealth of the country. Of course, these dues are all pulled from government funds.
What does this mean? It means that stable, developed countries are forking over vast sums of money every year to achieve the supposedly noble goals of the U.N. — noble goals that have now been reduced to how to properly cut llama meat. According to the 2010 U.N. Budget fact sheet, the United States was the top provider for 2010 funds, contributing 27.17 percent of the U.N.’s budget for the year. The next highest contributor was Japan at 12.53 percent.. Essentially, the U.N. is wasting money by being inefficient, and — more importantly — it’s wasting our country’s money.
As we finalize our resolutions for the upcoming year, perhaps it is time for the U.N. to make a few resolutions as well. Here are a few suggestions: 1) Reevaluate objectives. What are the main goals thee U.N. should focus on accomplishing with its resources? 2) Draw distinct lines between what tasks each U.N. branch is qualified to tackle. Economic Commission, leave the llamas to the food sector and focus on your job. 3) Be frugal. There is no need to hold 632 training workshops in a year when 10 will do.
Perhaps if the members of the U.N. can apply these three basic suggestions effectively in the near future, it might become less of a laughingstock and more of the respected organization the U.N. was created to be.