The United Nations was established, in the aftermath of a devastating war, to help stabilize international relations and give peace a more secure foundation.

Amid the threat of nuclear war and seemingly endless regional conflicts, peacekeeping has become an overriding concern of the United Nations, and the activities of the blue-helmeted peacekeepers have emerged as among the most visible.

But the United Nations is much more than a peacekeeper and forum for conflict resolution. Often without attracting attention, the United Nations and its family of agencies are engaged in a vast array of work that seeks to improve people’s lives around the world.

Child survival and development. Environmental protection. Human rights. Health and medical research. Alleviation of poverty and economic development. Agricultural development and fisheries. Education. The advancement of women. Emergency and disaster relief. Air and sea travel. Peaceful uses of atomic energy. Labour and workers’ rights. The list goes on. Here, in brief, is a sampling of what the United Nations and its component bodies have accomplished since 1945, when the world organization was founded.

1. Promoting development—The UN has devoted its attention and resources to promoting living standards and human skills and potential throughout the world. The UN system’s annual expenditures for development, excluding the international financial institutions, amount to more than $10 billion. For instance, the UN Development Programme, with staff in 166 countries, leads the UN’s work on eradicating extreme poverty and promoting good governance in the developing world. UNICEF works in 157 countries and spends more than $1.2 billion a year, primarily on child protection, immunization, fighting HIV/AIDS and girls’ education. UNCTAD helps countries make the most of their trade opportunities for development purposes. In addition, the World Bank provides developing countries with loans and grants totalling around $18 billion-$20 billion a year and has supported more than 9,500 development projects since 1947. Virtually all funds for development aid come from contributions donated by countries.
   
2. Promoting democracy—The UN has helped to promote and strengthen democratic institutions and practices around the world. It has enabled people in many countries to participate in free and fair elections, including in Cambodia, Namibia, El Salvador, Eritrea, Mozambique, Nicaragua, South Africa, Kosovo and East Timor. It has provided electoral advice and assistance, including the monitoring of results, to more than 90 countries, often at decisive moments in their history, as in Afghanistan, Iraq and Burundi.
   
3. Promoting human rights—Since the General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the United Nations has helped to enact dozens of comprehensive agreements on political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights. By investigating individual complaints, the UN human rights bodies have focused world attention on cases of torture, disappearance and arbitrary detention and have generated international pressure to be brought to bear on governments to improve their human rights records.
   
4. Maintaining peace and security—By sending a total of 60 peacekeeping and observer missions to the world’s trouble- spots, as of 2005, the United Nations has been able to restore calm suffciently to allow the negotiating process to go forward, saving millions of people from becoming casualties of war. There are presently 16 peacekeeping operations around the world.
   
5. Making peace—Since 1945, the UN has assisted in negotiating more than 170 peace settlements that have ended regional conflicts. Examples include ending the Iran-Iraq war, facilitating the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and ending the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United Nations has used quiet diplomacy to avert imminent wars.

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