By some definition; the
United Nations (UN) is an International Organization established in October
1945, by the five permanent members of the Security Council: China, France,
Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States and by a majority
of the other 46 countries. The declared aims of the UN are to prevent war, to
reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, to provide an instrument for
international law, to promote social and economic development, to improve
living standards and fight diseases, and to offer freedom for all Nations.
On the other side; a Non
Governmental Organization (NGO) is a private institution which is not directly
part of the structure of government, but relies significantly on funding from
governments, individual donors, foundations, corporations. NGOs are not legal
entities under International Law, as States are (except the International
Committee of the Red Cross)
Every day, dozens of NGOs are
being founded; currently, there are more than five million (5.000.000) NGOs
around the world with most of them based in the US, India, Russia, Europe,
among others, and only one UN. Looking at the lists of NGOs it is observed that
since the mid nineties, the number of NGOs has been rapidly increasing. Why
millions of NGOs now? The rapid increase could be explained with the numerous
wars that were fought prior to this period, that aided in creating poverty,
refugees, neglect of human rights, abuse of women's and children's rights,
health and environmental problems, economical and political depression, among
others.
There are many speculations
concerning NGOs being tools of; a domestic or foreign governments, private
donors, corporations, organized crime, all of which to protect their interest
in some interest zone. Also, that NGOs are used for money laundry, as spy
centers, drug smuggling, trafficking, and even tools for destabilizing
countries, among others. It is unclear if all these are true or not, but one question
arises from it. "How many individuals would give somebody or someone
millions of dollars without asking anything in return?
Unfortunately, there are
numerous NGOs that are confirming these speculations and even ones whose
founders found good ways of making money and drying up Governmental budgets.
However, there are a great number of good and uncorrupted NGOs, which were
willing to make a change and really help someone.
Subsequently, what can we
expect in the future from the UN and NGOs?
Regrettably, it looks like
the budget of the UN is decreasing. Member States are late with payments, some
members have big debts, and this generally affects the UN body.
Meanwhile, the budgets of
NGOs are growing, with no debts and delaying in donor payments, with more media
attention committed to NGOs, increasingly now, Governments are counting on NGOs
more than on the UN, and if this trend continue, then NGOs will eventually
replace the UN on the international stage, and, maybe, eventually come to power
in some countries. Currently, we are evidencing a silent war among NGOs for
leading positions in the international system, the end result of which cannot
be predicted immediately, but it is obvious; there are too many hungry sharks
in the sea. If we look through calculations: five million NGOs multiplied by
ten people in every organization, we come up to the number of fifty million
people working in NGOs worldwide, and the number is likely to grow.
It would be out of place to
say that the UN is a perfect organization; we all know about manipulations of
the UN system by some countries to get their will throughout, and because of
that and many other things, the UN lost its respect on the international scene.
Still, the UN is an International Organization, it has been helping and still
helps people around the world; it was established for noble reasons; to
represent all Nations equally and fairly, and it is expected that it will live
up to its responsibilities and continue to do so.