However, in recent years, the effectiveness of the UN has been called into question and greatly criticized. The criticism mainly addresses the UN’s inability to solve civil war-related problems and inappropriate use of resources. Although there are multiple obstacles to the UN’s effectiveness, the UN makes all the possible efforts to solve the issues and provide humanitarian help. Starting from the most recent events, the Rohingya Crisis took place in Myanmar in 2017, when the Myanmar government launched a military campaign that forced several hundred thousand Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh and Malaysia. As China and Russia objected to the original draft of the Security Council declaration regarding the issue and proposed their competing text, the UN considers the merger of the two drafts to eliminate further delays (Agence France Presse [AFP], 2021). In 2014, the UN tried to collect $4 billion in humanitarian help for the Yemen civil war but only managed to collect $700 million due to a lack of donations (Jahanagir, 2020). As many UN agencies are funded by voluntary contributions, raising money became a constant problem for the UN (Jahanagir, 2020). In 2011, the UN founded The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) with the intention to consolidate peace and security. Thousands of personnel distributed in the civilian, military, and police pillars were sent to South Sudan in a peacekeeping operation focused on the protection of the civilians (Silva, 2019). United Nations faced criticism for the irrational use of resources but managed to protect large numbers of people in PoC sites, originally designed to hold only a small portion of vulnerable people (Day, 2019). Furthermore, since 2011, The Security Council of the UN drafted 16 Resolutions aimed at ending the civil war in Syria and addressing the populations’ safety, but Russia and China vetoed all the drafts (Benarbia, 2021). Thus, the obstacles for the UN’s effectiveness lie in deeper reasons like objections from particular countries and lack of financial donations. Still, the UN does everything that is possible to provide help and safety for vulnerable people.
References
Agence France Presse. (2021). UN fails to agree on Myanmar statement, diplomats blame China, Russia. Bangkok Post.
Benarbia, S. (2021). Syria and the UN Security Council: A decade of abysmal failures. OpinioJuris.
Day, A. (2019). Impact of UN Mission in South Sudan Complicated by Dilemmas of Protection. IPI Global Observatory.
Jahanagir, S. (2020). Yemen conflict: Yet another UN failure. World Geostrategic Insights.
Silva, J. (2019). The contribution of the United Nations police to the protection of civilians in South Sudan. Conjuntura Austral 10(50), 84-97. doi:10.22456/2178-8839.93332