Guterres, on the 75th anniversary of the UN: "The pandemic has exposed the fragilities of the world"

In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, its Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, called on Monday to preserve the longest period of peace among the world's great powers.

Guterres recalled that "it took two world wars, millions of deaths and the horrors of the Holocaust for world leaders to commit to international cooperation and the rule of law."

“A third world war, which many feared, has been avoided.

This is a great achievement that Member States can be proud of, and that we must all strive to preserve ”, he added.

Born after the second great warlike conflict of the twentieth century, with the aim of protecting future generations from the devastation of another great war, the UN this year faces its 75th anniversary in a politically polarized world, shaken by numerous regional conflicts, faced with a climate emergency and a global economic crisis and, above all this, bent by a terrible pandemic that has already left almost a million deaths all over the planet.

"Today," Guterres warned, "we have a surplus of multilateral challenges and a deficit of multilateral solutions."

“Climate calamity looms.

Biodiversity is collapsing.

Poverty grows again.

Hate spreads.

Geopolitical tensions are escalating.

Nuclear weapons remain on a sensitive trigger alert.

Technologies have opened up new opportunities, but also new threats.

The covid-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of the world.

We can only tackle them together ”, said the Secretary General.

This Monday's act serves as a prelude to the UN General Assembly, which begins on Tuesday one of its strangest annual sessions, held almost entirely virtually.

The pandemic has also taken the act of this Monday away from the celebratory tone, and has been limited to a succession of brief recorded interventions, of about three minutes each, by representatives of the Member States.

At the organization's headquarters, in New York, there were representatives from each of the countries, who gave way to videos of the respective heads of state.

In his speech, the King of Spain, Felipe VI, joined the call to strengthen multilateralism to respond to the great challenges facing the world.

"Because of the pandemic, humanity is experiencing an unprecedented global crisis that puts our countries and the United Nations system to the test, but also shows how necessary structured international cooperation is in an increasingly smaller world," he said. assured the Spanish head of state in his speech.

"The response to current challenges requires a strengthened, more inclusive and improved multilateralism that facilitates collaboration between state actors and civil society and that results in a real, positive and tangible impact on people's lives."

Coinciding with its 75th anniversary, the UN this year launched a massive demographic study that they have described as "a global conversation."

Through surveys and meetings with more than a million people from the 193 member countries, the goal was to determine people's hopes and fears for the future.

It is the most ambitious effort to date to understand the expectations in international cooperation and in the UN in particular, and according to Guterres, the results are "striking" and remarkably homogeneous around the world.

In the midst of the pandemic, the immediate priority of the majority of those surveyed, according to the study, is to improve access to basic services, such as health or education, followed by the need for greater international solidarity and greater support for the most disadvantaged.

The climate crisis and the destruction of the environment are also, according to the study, "overwhelming concerns."

87% of those surveyed consider global cooperation to be "vital to meeting today's challenges", and 60% believe that the UN has made the world a better place.