The UN at 80: Reflections from a Field Worker

As the United Nations General Assembly gathers this week in New York, world leaders debate global priorities. For me, it is also a moment to reflect on fifteen years of service in an organisation that has shaped my life, from my childhood in Cameroon to crises across continents.

Now, as the UN turns 80, I look back not just as a staff member, but as someone whose journey has been profoundly shaped by the institution itself. My path has taken me across borders, through crises and recoveries. But it is the UN, this living institution, that has influenced how I see the world and my place in it. Today, the UN is older, perhaps slower in some parts, bruised by history and weighed down by the expectations of a world in flux. And yet, it is still standing, still trying, still showing up where others will not.

There are voices today that say the UN is failing. That it is bloated, too soft, too slow. That it should shrink, do less, and cost less. And to be honest, these voices are not wrong to want change, as any institution that reaches 80 must pause and reflect. But we must not forget the full picture. Because if we only look at what the UN struggles with today, we risk missing the miracle of what it has already done and continues to do.

To understand why, we need to remember where this organisation has been.

Born out of the rubble

The United Nations was born out of the rubble of the Second World War, with one mission: to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. When 51 countries signed the UN Charter in San Francisco in 1945, the world was still burying its dead and rebuilding cities from ash. Just a year later, UNICEF was created not for long-term development, but to meet the emergency needs of children in post-war Europe and Asia. By 1950, UNICEF had helped vaccinate over 20 million children against tuberculosis and diphtheria and was feeding nearly 6 million children every day.

In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted, with Eleanor Roosevelt at the helm. At a time when racial segregation still existed in many countries and colonialism was law across much of Africa and Asia, this document boldly affirmed the dignity and equality of all people. It was revolutionary.

The 1950s and 60s saw decolonisation movements accelerate. Between 1960 and 1980, over 80 countries gained independence, with many receiving the support or political recognition of the UN. Africa alone saw 17 new nations join the UN in 1960, the so-called “Year of Africa.” The UN supervised referendums, trained civil servants, and helped draft new constitutions across newly independent states, including Ghana, Algeria, Gabon, Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and later Namibia, to name a few.

In 1960, the UN established the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. That same year, it deployed its first major peacekeeping mission to Congo, with over 20,000 troops, the largest and most complex mission at the time. The Congo was in chaos after independence. UN peacekeepers helped stabilise the country, though at a great cost: then-UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash while on a mission in 1961.

Health, too, remained central. In 1974, WHO launched the Expanded Programme on Immunisation, which by 1980 had helped immunise over 50 million children against diseases like measles, polio, and tetanus. And of course, the great triumph of smallpox eradication. After two decades of coordination, WHO declared in 1980, the year I was born, that smallpox had been completely wiped out. It had killed over 300 million people in the 20th century alone. The last case was recorded in Somalia, a country that today still benefits from UN humanitarian assistance.

Human development

The UN didn’t just respond to poverty; it redefined how the world understands it. Born in 1965 amid a wave of post-colonial transitions and growing demands for global solidarity, UNDP was established to support countries not with charity, but with tools to build their futures. Then, more than thirty years ago, UNDP introduced a revolutionary idea: Human Development. It challenged the world to stop measuring poverty by income alone and start seeing it for what it is: the denial of opportunity, of education, of health, of dignity. This shift was not cosmetic. It transformed how governments designed policies, how institutions measured progress, and how millions were empowered, not through charity, but by restoring agency. Human development changed not just how we measure poverty, but how we fight for it and build a world where everyone counts.

I have seen this impact firsthand. In Vietnam, poverty fell from 58.1 per cent in 1993 to 5.8 per cent in 2020, thanks in part to UN-supported development programmes that empowered communities and improved access to education and healthcare. In Mexico, poverty dropped from 43.2 per cent in 2018 to 36.3 per cent in 2022, lifting five million people out of poverty. In the Lake Chad Basin, UNDP, partners and governments led stabilisation initiatives have helped more than 500,000 refugees and internally displaced people return home, rebuild livelihoods, and regain dignity.

In the 1970s, the UN led ground-breaking work in the fight against hunger. The World Food Programme, created in 1961 as a three-year experiment, had by 1980 become the largest humanitarian food agency in the world, feeding millions during crises like the Biafran War (Nigeria), the Bangladesh Liberation War, and the Sahel droughts.