Its headquarters are in New York City. UN headquarters officially opened on 9 January, 1951.There are though other UN Buildings in other parts of the world such as The Hague , Montreal and Bonn.
There are organizations within in the UN , each dealing in a specific area, such as the World Health Organization (WHO),United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the International Court of Justice .
The official languages are Arabic, Chinese , English ,French , Russian , and Spanish.
It is financed voluntarily by its member states. Every 2 years the UN receives money. Though the General Assembly decides how much each member should pay by looking at how much it can afford.
There is a smoking ban within the UN headquarters but some countries allow smoking its embassies.
There are United Nation International Days to focus the worlds attention at a particular thing . For a example April 7 is World Health Day to remind members that one the Millennium Goals are to reduce child mortality , combat HIV/aids etc.
The United Nations Millennium Declaration was signed in September 2000. It was the targets of the members. These are the goals:
- Achieve universal primary education;
- Promote gender equality and empower women;
- Reduce child mortality;
- Improve maternal health;
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;
- Ensure environmental sustainability;
- Develop a global partnership for development.
It is has quite a big impact on the world. When there is a important issue the General Assembly bring its to attention and helps decide what needs to be done.
For an example, International Conference on Population and Development, in 1994 approved a programme of action to address the critical challenges and interrelationships between population and sustainable development.
At the moment UN Human Rights Council are trying to close down a prison in Cuba where men are being tortured by American soldiers. The UN is quite involved in world affairs if there is a major conflict such as the one in Sudan, the UN send peacekeepers to help ease the tension. Peace Keeping operations are optional, so far only Canada and Portugal have had them.
UN is quite influential as it prevents countries from doing bad things such as mistreating humans and unfair elections taking place. It also supports women being treated equally.
If a country doesn’t follow the UN rules, the UN can stop trading with that member so there is economic loss. However UN and its organisations don’t have to follow the law where they operate.
At the moment the UN is helping the world incredibly. It provides things such as water , food and shelter to people who are in poverty , have been afflicted from war and other disasters. The UN has a World Food Programme, which helps feed more than 100 million people a year. Its UN Population Fund has helped maternal and infant mortality in 100 countries!
Its organisation World Health Organization has impacted the world greatly it eliminated smallpox in 1977 and is now close to eliminating polio.
Though sometimes the impact on world affairs in very little for an example in the Israel-Lebanon crisis in 2006 no action was taken.
Their World Food Programme helps save lives in refugee crises and other emergencies. In helps improve nutrition and quality of life of people in developing countries.
