UN Confronts Crisis of Trust, Legitimacy and Relevance

By Stephanie Hodge

In 1945, with cities in ruins and hope stretched thin, 50 nations gathered in San Francisco to build something better. From the ashes of fascism, genocide, and world war, they forged a charter — a binding declaration that peace, justice, and human dignity must be safeguarded through international cooperation.

The United Nations was not born of idealism but necessity. It was designed to prevent collapse.

Now, nearly 80 years later, the UN faces a different kind of crisis — a slow erosion of trust, legitimacy, and relevance. Yet, the urgency that once gave birth to the UN is glaringly absent from the reforms now meant to preserve it.

Last week, Secretary-General António Guterres launched the UN80 Initiative — a pledge to modernise the institution through streamlining and restructuring. The speech was technically solid. It named real issues: fragmentation, inefficiency, and fiscal strain.

But it did not meet the moment. Reform without strategic clarity is choreography, not change. Worse, it risks reinforcing the same asymmetries of power it claims to address.

I watched the speech not just as a professional evaluator or former advisor, but as someone who has worked within this system — from post-conflict zones to global policy tables — for over three decades. I’ve seen both the courage of communities and the inertia of agencies. And I recognise when reform becomes performance. As currently framed, UN80 risks becoming exactly that.

What Was Said

The Secretary-General outlined three core workstreams:

A comprehensive review of all mandates assigned to the Secretariat by Member States;

Identification of operational efficiencies across departments and entities;

Structural reforms — including mergers and the formation of thematic clusters.

He described it as a system-wide effort, not confined to the Secretariat, and positioned the initiative as a response to geopolitical instability, technological change, rising conflict, and shrinking resources.

These are real challenges. The system is under pressure. But while the administrative diagnosis is clear, the political and strategic roadmap remains vague.

Structure cannot substitute for strategy. Operational tweaks cannot fix foundational incoherence. Reform must begin with clarity: what is the UN for — and for whom is it accountable?

What Was Not Said: Strategic Purpose

The most important question remains unanswered:

Reform for what?

What is the role of the United Nations in the 21st century?

A humanitarian responder? A normative standard-setter? A peace broker? A defender of rights?

The UN was never meant to become a donor-driven delivery contractor. It was built to stand against war, inequality, and tyranny. Yet it has slowly morphed into a service bureaucracy, reliant on earmarked funds, political favour, and private partnerships.

Until the UN reclaims its strategic purpose, structural reform will simply mask its decline.

Who Holds the Power?

Power in the UN system has not shifted democratically, but informally:

The P5 still hold veto power over peace and security;

The G7 and G20 shape global development agendas from outside ECOSOC;

Vertical funds (e.g., GCF, GEF, CIFs) operate in parallel, with more accountability to their boards than to multilateral norms;

Major donors steer priorities through earmarks;

Key leadership roles are traded among geopolitical blocs.

UN80 is silent on this. Yet no reform is meaningful without confronting where power truly resides.

The Mirage of Clustering

I remember sitting in a government office in a post-conflict country, trying to explain why three UN agencies had arrived offering nearly identical support for disaster risk planning. The local official — exhausted but polite — leaned back and asked:

"Is the UN not one family? Why do we get five cousins and no parent?"

This is the illusion clustering risks reinforcing. Merging agencies under thematic umbrellas assumes dysfunction can be fixed through coordination. But those who work in the field know: coordination without clarity, and structure without trust, rarely delivers.

Clustering is not inherently flawed — but it is not a shortcut to legitimacy.

Efficiency is not coherence. Coherence is not ownership. You cannot engineer trust through organigrams. You earn it through transparency, inclusion, and shared accountability.

Staff are not resisting change; they are resisting erasure. Clustering threatens more than jobs — it risks displacing identities and mandates, and replacing technical expertise with bureaucratic minimalism.

True reform must start from the ground up — with countries and communities defining what they need from the UN. Clustering should be the outcome of that dialogue, not a substitute for it.

The Case of UN DESA

UN DESA, originally created to support ECOSOC, now overlaps with the work of UNDP, UNCTAD, and others — often without field engagement or accountability.

DESA exemplifies what happens when reform avoids the politics: roles blur, duplication deepens, and trust deteriorates.

Country Ownership: The Loudest Silence

UN80 risks becoming a technocratic project shaped by donors and elite consultants — while the majority of Member States, especially those navigating colonial legacies, debt burdens, and climate injustice, are left out of the conversation.

That is not multilateralism. That is managed decline.

Where were the voices of the Global South, SIDS, LDCs, post-conflict governments, and frontline communities?

Reform cannot be legitimate unless it is co-created with those it most affects.

The Funding Problem

Guterres acknowledged financial strain — but sidestepped the deeper issue:

UN financing is largely non-core, unpredictable, and donor-controlled;

Agencies compete for resources rather than collaborate for impact;

Global funds wield more influence than ECOSOC and face far less scrutiny.

Real reform must propose a new multilateral funding compact — one that aligns with national priorities, funds coordination as a global public good, and dismantles structural dependency.

Do We Need Another War to Reform the UN?

This is not just crisis fatigue. It is something more dangerous:

The return of authoritarianism, xenophobia, and surveillance — masked as security.

Civic space is shrinking. International norms are being dismissed. Fear is being weaponised. The ghosts of fascism are no longer metaphors — they are detention centres, discriminatory laws, and digital surveillance tools.

The UN was created to prevent this. But unless it reclaims its moral clarity and legitimacy, it will become a bystander to its own irrelevance.

Reform for What?

Not for balance sheets.

Not for organigrams.

Reform for justice. Reform for relevance. Reform for a world that cannot wait.

Until we define the UN’s core purpose, no amount of restructuring will restore its credibility.

Final Thoughts

UN80, as currently presented, does not challenge the logic that broke the system. It risks becoming just another round of technocratic tinkering that leaves power untouched.

If we want more than managerialism — if we want meaning — we must:

Declare the UN’s purpose in the 21st century;

End political appointments that erode leadership integrity;

Integrate vertical funds under multilateral coordination;

Restore ECOSOC as the centre of global economic governance;

And most importantly, centre the voices and needs of those the system was created to serve.

The Charter was a promise. UN80 is a test.

Let us stop pretending reform is neutral. Let us confront the politics, follow the money, and honour what we owe the future.

Let us be braver than the moment expects.

Stephanie Hodge is an international evaluator and former UN advisor who has worked across 140 countries. She writes on governance, multilateral reform, and climate equity.

Caption: The Secretariat Building at United Nations Headquarters, New York. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas