The United Nations turns 80 at a moment when its relevance is under sharper question than at any point since its founding. Conceived in the ashes of global war, the UN was meant to embody collective security and the promise of universal cooperation. Today, it stumbles under financial arrears of more than USD 5 billion, paralysis in its Security Council and growing reliance on mini-lateral groupings that deliver expedient crisis management, but erode global legitimacy.
The Secretary-General’s “UN80” initiative is framed as an efficiency exercise, a tidying-up of mandates, budgets and bureaucratic processes. But the real question is far more profound: Can the UN reclaim authority and purpose in a fractured world order? Or will this anniversary be remembered as another hollow reform cycle, long on rhetoric, short on impact?
What reform should actually mean
It is tempting for governments to conflate reform with cosmetic changes. Drafting new committees, reshuffling mandates or adopting aspirational declarations are familiar rituals. Real reform, however, would touch the political nerve of the organisation, its financing, its mandate discipline, its representational legitimacy and its operational delivery.
It requires financing with teeth, because the UN’s credibility cannot rest on whether major donors decide to pay their dues on time. Chronic arrears, especially when used deliberately as leverage, undermine both planning and independence. Reform worth the name would impose strict consequences on non-payers, enforce Article 19 suspensions without exception and link contributions to measurable outcomes, preventive diplomacy, humanitarian delivery or peacekeeping effectiveness. Without predictable funding, “multilateralism” remains an empty slogan.
It requires mandate rationalisation, because the more than 40,000 standing mandates weigh the Secretariat down, many of them obsolete. Resources that should be directed toward crisis prevention and mediation are instead consumed by reporting cycles on long-forgotten resolutions. Reform should include mandatory sunset clauses, periodic reviews and a willingness to retire the dead weight. A lighter, sharper UN would be one that spends less time producing paper and more time saving lives.
It requires representation that reflects reality, because the Security Council, the crown jewel of the post-war order, is dangerously misaligned with today’s global balance. Africa, Latin America and much of Asia remain underrepresented, while the veto power of the P5 entrenches paralysis. Reform cannot mean simply adding more permanent members with the same privileges, since that risks replicating the current dysfunction at a larger scale. Models of regional rotation, time-bound seats or limited veto carve-outs tied to humanitarian need would bring flexibility and accountability, while still preserving decision-making capacity.
It requires operational partnerships, because reform is not only about structure, but about delivery. Mini-lateral arrangements are proliferating precisely because they appear faster and more pragmatic. If the UN wants to remain central, it must show results through structured partnerships with regional organisations like the African Union and ASEAN. Predictable financing for AU-led operations, embedded joint planning and burden-sharing agreements would make the UN indispensable again, not for its symbolism, but for its outcomes.
The political obstacles
These reforms are straightforward to list, but formidable to enact. That is because the obstacles are not technical, but political.
Let’s face it, there are great power games. The United States, China, Russia and others treat arrears, vetoes and mandates, not as flaws, but as instruments of control. Expecting them to voluntarily relinquish these tools is wishful thinking. Calls for accountability often collide with the raw calculus of power.
Let’s face it, cynicism prevails among the middle power countries. Many states in the Global South rightly demand representation, but their coalitions are rarely cohesive. Regional rivalries mean that bids for permanent seats become competitions rather than common causes. Reform debates, as a result, frequently stall in procedural wrangling.
And let’s face it, the UN suffers from institutional inertia, because the Secretariat has itself grown adept at managing process without delivering change, with endless working groups, reviews and consensus drafts consuming energy, while structural imbalances remain untouched. Unfortunately, the culture of the UN often prizes survival over transformation.
History is littered with examples of reform cycles that ended in disappointment, for example, the 2000 Brahimi Report on peace operations promised a revolution in UN capacity, but was largely neutered by budgetary and political resistance. The 2005 World Summit raised hopes for major change, but delivered incremental adjustments. Scepticism, therefore, is not cynicism, but realism.
Why UN80 might be different, or not
And yet, there is something distinctive about this moment. The UN is closer than ever to insolvency and its legitimacy deficit is acute and global trust in multilateralism is eroding, visible in the rise of ad hoc coalitions, transactional diplomacy and populist disdain for international institutions. If UN80 fails, the danger is not merely another missed opportunity, but an accelerated slide into irrelevance.
That urgency could be catalytic. Clear, outcome-based reform, retiring obsolete mandates, enforcing payment discipline, embedding regional partnerships, would have visible impact and restore some faith in collective action. Even modest changes, if measurable, could shift perceptions. A UN that demonstrates it can adapt might still persuade publics and governments alike that it is indispensable.
But the risks of failure are high. If UN80 devolves into another round of ritualised declarations, the narrative of dysfunction will harden. The UN could become less the table at which the world gathers than the museum in which its aspirations are remembered.
A fork in the road
The UN at 80 stands at a crossroads. The easier path is familiar: statements of principle, incremental adjustments and a slow drift into irrelevance. The harder path requires political courage that confronts arrears with enforcement, prunes mandates with discipline and rebalances power with fairness. Reform is not about efficiency for its own sake, it is about authority, legitimacy and survival.
The test for UN80 is whether member states can move beyond rhetoric and sacrifice a measure of control for the sake of credibility. That is a high bar in a world where power is jealously guarded and multilateralism is too often instrumentalised.
The United Nations was founded on a promise of shared responsibility. Eight decades on, it must decide whether that promise can still be made real. If reform delivers prevention over paralysis, fairness over privilege and results over rhetoric, the UN might yet reclaim relevance. If not, its 80th anniversary risks being remembered not as a renewal, but as a eulogy.
Daryl Swanepoel is the Chief Executive Officer of the Inclusive Society Institute. This articles draws on the Institute’s report published under the title: “Reform UN80: Renewal or decline? The future of multilateralism at the United Nations’ 80th anniversary”
Daryl Swanepoel is the Chief Executive Officer of the Inclusive Society Institute and a leading voice on global governance reform. With a career spanning politics, business, and academia, he has served as a parliamentarian, strategist, and educator. His current focus includes work on reimagining the UN system, challenging entrenched power dynamics, and driving inclusive solutions.
