Is the United Nations still relevant?

Is the UN still relevant? I'll gather current assessments of its role and challenges.

Is the United Nations still relevant? The short answer from most world leaders and polls is yes — but increasingly conditional on reform.

As the UN approaches its 80th anniversary on Oct 24, that question has become central to the General Debate of the 193 Member States.

Why many say yes — it is still relevant

> If this High-Level Week is an indication, this house is fulfilling that purpose – the United Nations is still relevant

That was the assessment of General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock after the 2025 High-Level Week, echoed by President of the General Assembly who said if high-level week is any indication, the United Nations is still relevant.

Reasons cited:

1. It remains the only universal forum. The UN might be nearly 80 years old, but it’s still one of the world’s most important — and surprisingly impactful — institutions. Its vast membership — more than 190 member states — sending heads of state to New York is seen as a clear indicator that it is widely viewed to be politically relevant and an important platform for shaping international discourse. Although the UN importantly connects all nations—despite ancient enmities—in one room, its Secretary-General has argued: “The United Nations exists because power requires rules – and humanity needs a place where power answers to principle.”

2. Its original core purpose still holds. One analysis argues the UN is still relevant if one keeps in mind the core purpose of its founding: to prevent another world war between the great powers. In that sense it functions less as a "Parliament of Man" and more as a "Concert of Great Powers."

3. Achievements that have no alternative:

•Supporting peacekeeping around the world, creating benchmarks for human rights, providing humanitarian assistance, eliminating diseases such as smallpox, solving the Suez Canal crisis in 1956 and promoting goals such as education and the elimination of poverty

•Humanitarian and development work through specialized agencies: UN agencies like UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP, and WHO are at the forefront of providing humanitarian assistance to populations affected by conflict, natural disasters, and poverty. UN agencies, like UNICEF and the World Food Programme, provide life-saving assistance, and The World Health Organization (WHO) leads global efforts — with the WFP awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for its efforts to combat hunger.

•Climate governance: The UN’s the organization responsible for the COPs, the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The Paris Agreement is the most well-known action from the COPs, formed in the COP21, held in 2016 in France.

•Norm-setting: developing Sustainable Development Goals, international law, refugee resettlement, air travel, and intellectual property — areas where analysts say the UN still makes a difference.

Even with P5 divisions, analysts note the P5 “can still cobble together some sort of cooperation when they want to,” citing the 50,000 peacekeepers and over a dozen economic sanctions programs — far more than during the Cold War.

4. Global public opinion still favors it. Most publics in the 25-nation 2025 Pew Global Attitudes Survey hold net-positive views of the United Nations. Before the Iran war began, support remained relatively high — 61% having a favorable opinion, according to the Pew Research Center.

Why relevance is increasingly questioned

The same debate produced the qualifier most often heard in New York in 2024-2025: Is the United Nations still relevant? Unhesitatingly, I say yes. Is it still fit for purpose? Reluctantly, I say, without reform, no.

A recurring question throughout the debate was not whether the United Nations should exist, but whether it can produce results. As General Assembly President Rahman put it: “Outside these walls, people are not asking whether the United Nations still exists. They are asking whether it works.”

1. Security Council veto paralysis

The real engine of the United Nations remains the Security Council. Paradoxically, two of the main perpetrators of global threat and instability, Russia and China, are still two of the permanent members. They regularly veto Security Council proposals. That is a self-perpetuating stasis right at the heart of the United Nations.

•The veto has gradually become a source of institutional paralysis. Russia can prevent effective Security Council action against its own aggression in Ukraine. The United States can block resolutions that it considers prejudicial to Israel.

•Paralyzed by the veto rights of the major powers in conflicts such as those in Ukraine and Gaza, the Security Council is degenerating into an echo chamber.

•The perception is, rightly or wrongly, that the P5 are not upholding their end of the bargain with regard to the maintenance of international peace and security.

•In 2024, there was the largest number of vetoes in 40 years.

Despite its achievements, the UN faces valid criticism regarding bureaucracy, inefficiency, and occasional impotence in preventing major conflicts and atrocities.

2. Legitimacy and selective application of rules

The most fundamental challenge to the relevance of the United Nations is intimately linked to perceptions of its legitimacy. For many, this has been irretrievably compromised. Examples cited include Russia's violation of Ukraine's sovereignty, China refusing to condemn it, and the United States providing unconditional support for Israel's actions in Gaza — seen as great-power hypocrisy eroding the institution's role to ascribe or deny legitimacy to the use of force.

3. Financial and operational crisis

The UN's ability to tackle climate change, global health risks, humanitarian disasters, technological change, and longer-term development goals is shrinking, and it is shrinking rapidly, after the United States’ decision to delay critical budgetary support and put caps on its contributions to UN peacekeeping and its decision to abandon, by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change and the World Health Organization.

At the 2025-2026 General Debate, the United States noted: “We cut the UN budget for the first time ever, slashing it by 15 percent in 2026 and eliminating more than 4,000 positions from the UN bureaucracy,” while the UN regular budget is close to $4 billion for 2026.

4. Structure rooted in 1945

Speaker after speaker argued that representation and legitimacy can't be separated, and Africa's continued absence from permanent membership was a recurrent theme.

•Kenya: “The equality proclaimed in this Assembly ends at the doors of the Security Council."

•Guyana: “We need a Security Council that reflects the geopolitical realities of the 21st century, not the power structures of 1945"

•Secretary-General Guterres: “A 21st century Security Council without permanent African seats is unjust and indefensible”

Spain went furthest, calling for both fairer regional representation and scrapping the veto outright, while Russia backed expansion but added that reforms shouldn't undermine the prerogatives of the Permanent Members.

Incremental UN reform has failed. Decades of negotiations on Security Council reform have not produced real outcomes, and the UN80 Initiative that aims to make the United Nations more coherent, effective and responsive has been criticized for focusing on cost-cutting rather than fundamental changes.

Conclusion: Relevant, but not without change

The consensus in New York was not abolition but renewal. A recurring theme was that the scale of today's problems has outgrown the structures meant to solve them.

As Guyana summarized the mood of many delegations: “This is why we must not abandon multilateralism because it is imperfect; we must renew it because humanity still needs it.”

In other words: the UN remains relevant as the only universal place where power is required to answer to principle, where humanitarian aid is coordinated, health and climate norms are set, and great powers can still talk even when they cannot agree. But without reform of the Security Council veto, financing, and representation — to become an organization that works, not just exists — its relevance will continue to be questioned and its ability to prevent and resolve the wars and crises in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and beyond will remain severely limited.

Citations (3)

1un.orgGovernment
Reform, or lose trust: Governments press the UN to reflect the world as it is
Backs: “The short answer from most world leaders and polls is yes — but increasingly conditional on reform. As the UN approaches its 80th anniversary on Oct 24, that question has become central to the General Debate of the 193 Member States.”
2globalaffairs.orgNonprofits and think tanks
The UN is Turning 80. Is It Still Relevant?
Backs: “It remains the only universal forum. The UN might be nearly 80 years old, but it’s still one of the world’s most important — and surprisingly impactful — institutions. Its vast membership — more than 190 member states — sending heads of state to New York is seen as a clear indicator that it is widely viewed to be…”
3envoymag.comNot yet classified
When Rivals Find Common Ground: What the P5 Can Still Agree on at the UN
Backs: “Its vast membership — more than 190 member states — sending heads of state to New York is seen as a clear indicator that it is widely viewed to be politically relevant and an important platform for shaping international discourse.”