"In a seminal 2015 article in The Guardian, '70 years and half a trillion dollars later: What has the UN achieved?,' Chris McGreal's opening line captured the deep ambiguities that are revealed in any balanced assessment of the world organization: 'The United Nations has saved millions of lives and boosted health and education across the world, but it is bloated, undemocratic - and very expensive.'
Five years later, the political, financial and personnel pathologies described by McGreal have only gotten worse, and all are now starkly illuminated in the burgeoning controversy surrounding the World Health Organization (WHO) and its deplorable handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
No evaluation of the WHO can be understood unless seen in the wider context of the U.N. itself and its evolution from the brave beginnings of 1945 to the problem-plagued institution of today...
Any effort to impose true accountability on the U.N.'s sprawling aggregation of 17 specialized agencies, i4 funds, a secretariat with 17 departments employing over 40,000 people worldwide is made next to impossible by bureaucratic anachronisms such as having 80 separate locations processing payrolls, using different methodologies, and each agency having its own information technology system... It is sad to think how much more could be done if the United Nations as an institution had not fallen so far short of the hopes and dreams of its founders."