The future of the UN is at stake. For it to remain relevant and survive, it must cast off dogma and embrace a results-oriented approach.
In the corridors of the United Nations as it celebrates its 80th anniversary, anxious diplomats speak of a new ‘darkest hour’. Conflicts rage in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and beyond. Climate shocks intensify. Human displacement has reached record levels. Humanitarian budgets shrink. It is no wonder that the President of the General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock has warned that “there are some people out there saying…we don’t need this institution anymore.”
The causes are known to us all: paralysis in the Security Council, inefficiency in the bureaucracy, and the failure to adapt to political fragmentation and the dispersion of power. The rigid assumption that states alone matter has given way to the realities of private actors, technology, and transnational challenges.
The United Arab Emirates understands these shifts, perhaps more than most. We gained independence decades after the UN’s founding, as the Cold War still defined global affairs. Soon after, that order unravelled.
Our national experience reflects the very transformations that now challenge the international system—we partnered with the private sector to develop our industries, embraced technological innovation to secure a stake in the future, and forged stability and progress in a region riven with rivalry and cross-border threats. At every stage we refused to be passive before, or captive to, external conditions.
Multilateralism is under pressure, mistrusted at best. Yet it remains indispensable. The UN is still the only universal treaty-based platform with the mandate to prevent war, advance development and promote the rights of men, women and children. The task is not to abandon it altogether, but to make it relevant to today’s problems and responsive, in an effective manner, to the needs of the emerging world.
History shows the UN can deliver. The Montreal Protocol that protected the ozone layer, the World Health Organization’s role in eradicating smallpox, Secretary General U Thant’s successful mediation in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the UN’s contribution to reductions in poverty and gains in education—all were achieved under this system, despite formidable obstacles.
The same must be possible now, if we can muster the political will to act decisively. Having represented the UAE at 15 consecutive General Assemblies, I see three shifts that are urgently required.
Result oriented performance
First, break the grip of procedure. UN gatherings are too often defined by precedent at the expense of purpose. Bureaucracy has become an obstacle to innovation. Inclusion matters, but inclusion without capability is performative.
The UN Charter is clear: its mission is to prevent and resolve crises, not to perpetually debate them. This requires bringing in expertise from outside the tent and dismantling the resistance to change that has calcified within it.
The UN must introduce an outcome-oriented performance culture. This starts at the top. Senior leaders of the UN should not have job security for five years, come what may. Like in any other sphere, if they do not deliver results they should no longer serve.
Second, redefine development as value. In an era of constrained budgets, UN interventions must deliver multiple returns. Food programs, for example, should improve nutrition, support livelihoods, empower women, expand markets, and deploy technology to strengthen resilience, all at once.
The UN’s resources should be used to catalyse contributions from the private and philanthropic sectors, and it must identify the most cost-effective path to each outcome. The measure that matters is optimization.
The UN’s unique advantage is scale, but scale must be paired with smarter design and technology—predictive health systems, crop monitoring, crisis mapping—that can deliver more with less.
Others are delivering far more effectively than many UN institutions. Unless there’s a serious revamp, the erosion of trust in these multilateral systems, as well as the campaign to delegitimize them, will only accelerate.
Third, elevate the role of the private sector. In many parts of the world, governments and institutions lack the capital and capacity to meet urgent needs. Businesses bring investment, innovation, and speed. They can help the UN unlock the power of AI to achieve its objectives.
With the right framework, the private sector can become a core partner in building infrastructure, creating jobs, and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. The international system cannot afford to treat it as an accessory.
The resources for renewal already exist—within governments, within the UN, and across societies. Too often, our response to systemic change has swung between alarmism and fatalism. What is needed is steadier ground: to accept the realities of a new world without surrendering to them, to harness technology, and to adopt agile methods that prize results over rhetoric.
The UN stands in a storm it cannot escape. To endure, it must face it with unblinking resolve and cast off the dogmas that weigh it down. If it clings to nostalgia, it will share the fate of other noble visions that faded into history—and we will be all the worse for it.
