What is the UN and why do we need it?

Question

I don’t understand what is point of the UN, what role they have in the world?
Let’s say the security council decides something on some country, how they enforce it? Who can enforce it? And who really cares?

In: Other

Answer 1

I disagree pretty strongly with /u/10133960bbb .

The UN can be considered a place — basically the only place — where the countries of the world come together to collectively solve the biggest problems with words and plans instead of guns and bombs.

Yes, in times of conflict, it works mostly through persuasion rather than through edicts. This is known as “[soft power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power)” and it is hard to measure its efficacy compared to hard power. One argument that it does have an effect is that people DO NOT ignore the UN. They go there and make their cases to try and persuade the world that they are correct. If it was irrelevant, they wouldn’t need to bother. Their delegate could just stay home and say nothing. Is it always enough to prevent war? No. Is it sometimes so? Perhaps. How do you list the wars that didn’t happen?

But it is also important to remember that the UN does not just act during war. It is the home for [UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP, UNDP, UNEP, UNFPA, UN-HABITAT](https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-system) and many, many other organizations that reduce the suffering of millions or billions of people around the world. How many additional people are tending farms instead of picking up guns right now? Here’s an incredible story about how the UN is rolling back the [Sahara desert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCli0gyNwL0).

There are 35.3 million refugees in the world and UNHCR is responsible for trying to get them to safety. Millions of them are directly housed in [camps](https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/camps/) run by UNHCR. And that’s just one of the dozens of agencies run by the UN.

There are 11 UN [Peacekeeping operations](https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/where-we-operate) right now. Once again, we’ll never know how many wars they prevented…because they didn’t happen.