Today is the 68th anniversary of the United Nations. This is an occasion for all those committed to its charter and to the values that it seeks to promote to reflect on how it can be more effective in dealing with the continued emerging problems that face humankind. Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the UN as an international organization with “a human face.”
There have been many attempts to marginalize the UN's role in managing international concerns, conflicts and the spread of poverty and disease that confront the international community. What the world is challenged with is how to deal with a rapidly emerging dilemma, or contradiction — namely, a merging of globalization and fragmentation that is creating a series of complexities that breed insurgency, civil war, chaos, terrorism and other impediments to human life. So while globalization brings people together, fragmentation tears them apart. It is crucial at this moment to ask how the United Nations — as the only credible international organ — can manage this complexity.
