UN - THE GOOD GUYS
There has been no shortage of criticism directed at the United Nations in recent years, much of it exaggerated, selective or openly self-interested, particularly from governments such as Israel and the United States. Whatever the political noise, it’s essential to keep that criticism in perspective and recognise the UN for what it actually is in practice: one of the most important life-saving institutions ever created.
The United Nations is often spoken about in abstract or symbolic terms, but its most consequential work is practical and life-saving. Across conflict zones, famine-affected regions, disaster areas and fragile health systems, the UN functions as the world’s largest coordinated humanitarian apparatus. It operates where markets fail, where governments collapse, and where private actors will not go. While its political bodies attract the most attention and controversy, the UN’s specialised agencies quietly sustain millions of lives every year through food distribution, vaccination programmes, disease control, refugee protection and emergency relief.
In public health alone, the UN’s impact is vast. Through agencies such as the World Health Organisation and UNICEF, the organisation has played a central role in some of the greatest health gains in human history. Since 2000, global under-five mortality has fallen by more than half, a decline driven largely by vaccination campaigns, maternal health programmes, access to clean water, and basic nutrition interventions coordinated or delivered by UN bodies. UNICEF’s immunisation efforts alone reach hundreds of millions of children each year, preventing diseases such as measles, polio, tetanus and diphtheria. Measles deaths, for example, have fallen by roughly 70 per cent globally since the turn of the century, saving an estimated tens of millions of lives—a result that would not have been possible without UN-led coordination and funding.
The UN is also the backbone of global food relief. The World Food Programme, the world’s largest humanitarian organisation, provides food or cash assistance to well over 100 million people annually in more than 80 countries. In famine conditions — whether caused by drought, conflict, economic collapse or climate-driven crop failure — the WFP is often the only reason mass starvation does not occur. Independent evaluations consistently show that its interventions reduce mortality, stabilise communities and prevent the irreversible developmental damage that accompanies prolonged hunger, particularly in children.
In situations of forced displacement, the UN’s role is similarly decisive. The UNHCR supports over 100 million displaced people worldwide, including refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons. This support is not abstract: it means shelter, clean water, sanitation, schooling, medical care and legal protection in some of the most hostile environments on Earth. Refugee mortality rates in camps supported by UNHCR are typically far lower than those faced by displaced populations left without organised assistance, a difference that translates directly into lives saved at scale.
Crucially, much of the UN’s work prevents crises from becoming catastrophes. Early-warning famine systems, disease surveillance networks, disaster-preparedness planning and peacekeeping operations all operate in the background, largely unnoticed when they succeed. When cholera outbreaks are contained, when food shortages are stabilised before famine thresholds are crossed, or when ceasefires allow humanitarian corridors to open, the absence of headlines often masks effective UN action. In this sense, the organisation’s true impact is measured not only in the lives it saves directly, but in the mass death and suffering that never occur because coordinated intervention arrived in time.
The magnitude of the UN’s work is unfathomable.
