Is the United Nations still relevant?

This is a genuinely debated question, and reasonable people disagree. Let me pull in some current context to ground the discussion.# Is the UN Still Relevant? It's Complicated

There's no simple yes/no answer—the UN's relevance really depends on which part of it you're looking at, and 2025-2026 has been a particularly stark illustration of this split.

Where the UN Is Failing

The Security Council is largely gridlocked. In 2025, vetoes decreased to four – two US vetoes on Gaza and two Russian vetoes on Ukraine – but the Council's output continued to decline: it adopted 44 resolutions, the lowest number since 1991, and only 61.4 per cent received unanimous support. Deep divisions prevented meaningful responses to devastating conflicts in Gaza, Myanmar, Sudan and Ukraine.

This isn't just a technical problem—it's an existential one for the institution's credibility. The Security Council has, far too often, been deadlocked on the most devastating conflicts, and each veto cast by a permanent member may lead real people watching in real time to question the credibility and legitimacy not only of the Council, but of the UN in its entirety.

Structurally, critics argue the whole system reflects a bygone era: designed in 1945, its anachronistic structure, centred around five permanent members with veto powers, is increasingly unable to address today's conflicts. Reflecting an order that no longer exists, the Council's permanent members represent a minority of the world's people.

Financially, the organization is under severe strain. Donald Trump, a long-standing critic of the UN, has moved from rhetoric to action—since returning to power, his administration has slashed voluntary contributions to UN agencies and withheld mandatory payments to both the regular and peacekeeping budgets. The US currently owes billions of dollars in assessed contributions, prompting the Secretary-General to warn that the organisation faces the risk of "imminent financial collapse."

There's even a geopolitical push to sideline it entirely. Brazilian President Lula accused Trump of wanting to create "a new UN" just days after Trump launched his "Board of Peace" initiative at Davos—seen by many as a rival mechanism to bypass the UN system.

Where the UN Still Matters

Despite this, most serious analysts land on "necessary but insufficient" rather than "obsolete." Beyond its responsibility for international peace and security, the UN continues to play a vital role in the humanitarian sphere, and over the decades it has played an important role in promoting economic and social development, acting as first-responder in humanitarian crises, helping refugees, protecting child rights and setting global norms.

Even when the Security Council is paralyzed, other parts of the system keep functioning: other sections of the UN system are still operating despite the gridlock—agencies such as OCHA and UNHCR coordinate the supply of aid, occasionally without a murmur of the warring authorities. Localized ceasefires or confidence-building measures are usually negotiated by special envoys, proving that even with a divided Council, diplomacy can still work. But this has limits: a unified Security Council is not replaced by such workarounds—the failure to enforce penalties, permit peacekeeping, and command investigations of conflicts restricts the overall effect of the UN on urgent matters of security.

There's also a structural argument for why nothing better exists yet: no alternative organization currently exists with the legitimacy, reach, and capabilities to coordinate global action on issues ranging from climate change to conflict prevention to pandemic response.

The Bottom Line

The UN of 2026 looks like an institution caught between two identities: a Security Council increasingly seen as a symbol of great-power dysfunction, and a sprawling agency network still doing indispensable humanitarian and developmental work. As one analysis put it, the honest answer is genuinely "yes and no" depending on which test you apply.

Whether it remains relevant going forward seems to hinge less on internal reform and more on something the UN can't control: the UN is weaker and more delegitimised than ever, but meaningful change depends less on institutional reform than on geopolitical accommodation among major powers—should they succeed in forging a new equilibrium, the UN could regain relevance; if they fail, its capacity to prevent escalation will remain limited.

So: is it relevant? For humanitarian aid, refugee protection, and global norm-setting—yes, and arguably irreplaceably so. For preventing or resolving major wars between powerful states—right now, its flagship mechanism is largely stuck. Which answer you emphasize probably says as much about what you think the UN's core job is as it does about the UN itself.