United Nations should be reformed to 'address global challenges ahead', says Foreign Secretary
The United Nations should be reformed to be "willing to address the global challenges that lie ahead", the Foreign Secretary has said on the organisation’s 75th anniversary.
The UN on October 24 celebrates 75 years since its formation in California after the end of the Second World War.
The UK is participating in a raft of events to mark the date, including lighting up Foreign Office buildings in Britain and across the world.
Speaking to The Telegraph on the eve of the anniversary, Dominic Raab said the UK is committed to “strengthening multilateralism for the next 75 years” but called for the organisation to be reformed.
“We want to see a reformed UN, a UN that is ready and able, willing and equipped to address the global challenges that lie ahead,” he said.
“The UK will play its part in that global effort.”
Mr Raab added: “The world needs the UN. And on this anniversary we should remember it, and commit to strengthening multilateralism for the next 75 years.”
The Foreign Secretary’s comments come after a speech by Boris Johnson to the UN general assembly last month, in which he said the world’s battle against coronavirus had left the “very notion of the international community... pretty tattered”.
“We know that we simply can’t continue in this way,” Mr Johnson said.
The Prime Minister called for the formation of an “early warning system” to help the World Health Organisation, a UN body, to respond to future pandemics.
The Conservative Party has called for the UN to focus on its “core functions of peacekeeping, conflict prevention and resolution”.
To mark the UN’s anniversary, Royal Mail has stamped all mail since Wednesday with a commemorative postmark.
A team of Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office historians will tomorrow release a blog detailing the UK’s history of international collaboration through the UN.
