Reforms at UN

The Agenda of United National General Assembly (UNGA) has over 150 items with many of the items having sub-items. UNGA adopts about 300 resolutions of which over 50 are adopted in the Plenary and the rest in the Committees. This gives an idea of the quantum of work done by UN. The work is so much that most of the resolutions are not discussed in detail and some of these must have been passed without any debate. The UNGA would not be able to take concrete action on many items. Where the provisions of the resolutions are to be implemented by the member countries or others, the office of the Secretary-General would not have time to pursue and enforce implementation Therefore, the first major reform of the UN system should be to reduce the number of agenda items and the resolutions.

The UNGA as also the Security Council should confine themselves to matters of world peace, security, disarmament and such important matters. Other matters like economic development, health, education, science, environment, civil aviation, food, maritime maters, trade, etc. should left to be entirely handled by specialized agencies like UNDP, UNIDO, WHO, UNESCO, UNEP, ICAO, FAO, IFAD,WFP, IMO, WTO etc. If this is done, UNGA could devote more and enough time on matters relating to international peace, security, disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation etc. and enforce implementation of its resolutions. If the concerned governments are unwilling to implement, the matter could be referred to the Security Council who could decide on the action to be taken like imposing sanctions, sending UN forces etc.

Increasing the role of UNGA, abolition of veto powers of Permanent Members of Security Council could be taken up later on.