GENEVA, November 26. /TASS/. The UN secretariat and other agencies, unlike the UN Security Council, have prevented several conflicts and wars,and most importantly - a full-blown world war, said Melissa Fleming, UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications.
"The Security Council has failed to prevent or stop a number of conflicts at an early stage," she said in an interview with the Neue Z·rcher Zeitung newspaper, when asked whether the fact that the world is currently experiencing the highest number of armed conflicts since 1946 should be considered a failure of the United Nations. "But the UN Secretariat and other UN agencies have prevented wars or stabilized unstable situations. At least there is no Third World War."
According to Fleming, the world organization is "imperfect and needs to get better." However, she acknowledged that the UN "remains the only universal forum for establishing peace."
On March 12, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched the UN-80 initiative (the name refers to the 80th anniversary of the organization this year), aimed at improving the effectiveness of the organization and making structural changes to its work. According to his official representative Stephane Dujarric, work will focus on three areas: optimizing the use of resources, reviewing outdated mandates and structural changes to the UN system. The last two require the approval of the member states.