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- Published: October 6, 2024 20:51
New Delhi: In a veiled dig at the United Nations, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that it has become like an “old company”, which is not entirely keeping with the market but still occupying the space.
The Foreign Minister was speaking at the Kautilya Economic Conclave in Delhi on Sunday.
He highlighted the organisation’s decreasing relevance in addressing major global challenges in recent years, including the Covid pandemic and the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Middle East.
“The United Nations is like an old company, not entirely keeping up with the market, but occupying the space,” Jaishankar said at the event.
“What you have today is, yes, there is a UN. At the end of the day, however suboptimal it is in functioning, it is still the only multilateral game in town. But when it doesn’t step up on key issues, countries figure out their own ways of doing it,” he added.
Notably, India has always advocated for reformation of multilateral institutions, including the expansion of UN Security Council that reflects the current global realities, and looks forward to working with other member states to advance these crucial reforms.
The EAM further suggested that although the UN continues to exist, it is no longer the sole avenue for countries to collaborate on global problems. Citing the COVID-19 pandemic as a prime example, Jaishankar questioned the UN’s role during one of the most significant global crises of the last decade.
“Let’s take the last 5-10 years, probably the biggest thing that happened in our lives was COVID. Think about what the UN do on COVID. I think the answer is not very much,” he remarked. Jaishankar emphasized that countries were largely left to devise their own strategies or partner with others outside of the UN framework.
“Even during COVID, countries either did their own thing or you had an initiative like COVAX, which was done by a group of countries,” he said, highlighting the initiative as an example of a coalition that operated outside of the UN’s traditional multilateral structure.
Jaishankar also pointed to two ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, questioning the UN’s involvement.
“Where is the UN on them, essentially a bystander?” he said suggesting that the organization has become largely inactive when it comes to dealing with significant geopolitical crises.
Concluding his remarks, Jaishankar asserted, “I think today the UN will continue, but increasingly there’s a non-UN space, which is the active space,” indicating that more countries are forming new coalitions outside the UN to address global issues.
