After 80 years of the United Nations: Is there more peace in the world?

Reform can’t wait. The Security Council must expand to include new economic and military powerhouses that have emerged across the seven (7), continents of the world. Bureaucracy must be streamlined and enforcement mechanisms rebuilt. Otherwise, the UN risks losing trust entirely, pushing more nations toward BRICS if it offers peace and progress, which the UN is struggling unsuccessfully to engender and foster… The world is in turmoil. The UN was created to prevent exactly this moment. Either it reinvents itself now – or it becomes an artefact of the past

THE United Nations turns 80 this year. Its General Assembly in New York carries the theme: “Better Together: 80 Years and More Peace for Development and Human Rights.” Yet the words sound hollow. Across continents, wars rage and human rights abuses proliferate. Peace—once the UN’s central promise—seems to be slipping away.

Europe, which had enjoyed relative calm since World War II, is now locked in a grinding Russian–Ukrainian war. The Middle East is aflame from Gaza to Yemen. Across Africa, terrorism, insurgency, and internecine wars—from DR Congo, Sudan to Nigeria—are claiming thousands of lives. These realities make the UN’s anniversary theme feel like a paradox.

Founded in 1945 to prevent another global cataclysm, the UN is now watching helplessly as conflicts multiply. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky captured the mood at UNGA when he warned that the world “must not let Russia make war the new normal.”

The data that l have put together from multiple platforms backs him up. According to the 2025 Global Peace Index, global peacefulness has been deteriorating for two decades. There are now 59 active state-based conflicts, the most since the late 1940s. Conflicts are increasingly internationalised, with 98 countries involved in external wars—up from 59 in 2008.

The economic cost of violence is staggering: $19.97 trillion in 2024 alone, or 11.5% of global GDP, according to the IMF. Middle Eastern and North African nations remain the least peaceful, but even Europe’s stability has been shattered, undermining confidence in the UN’s ability to uphold its founding mission.

This is despite the UN’s vast footprint. Since 1948, it has deployed more than 140 peace missions, including peacekeeping, diplomacy, and political interventions. Yet its record on enforcing disarmament treaties and ensuring humanitarian relief remains mixed.

Recognising these shortcomings, Secretary-General António Guterres has launched reforms like UN80 and UN 2.0, aiming to make the organisation more agile in confronting today’s crises. But the scale and complexity of current conflicts—spanning cyberwarfare, terrorism, climate-driven migration, and rising authoritarianism—make his task herculean.

The lesson is clear: the UN must evolve or risk irrelevance. It was built for a post–World War II order dominated by nation-states. Today’s conflicts are messier, with non-state actors, proxy wars, and disinformation campaigns undermining traditional diplomacy.

As the UN marks its 80th anniversary, it should be a moment of reckoning rather than celebration. The organisation must develop faster response mechanisms, rethink its peacekeeping model, and empower regional blocs to act as first responders. Above all, it must address its legitimacy deficit—starting with long-overdue Security Council reform. Africa’s quest for a permanent seat on the Council, long sidelined, needs to be revisited if the UN is to reflect 21st-century realities.

The bloodshed from Ukraine to Gaza to DR Congo and Sudan, as well as Nigeria, is a grim reminder that peace cannot be taken for granted. Eight decades after its founding, the UN stands at a crossroads: adapt to a rapidly changing world or watch its founding promise of “never again” fade into irrelevance.

Nigeria is often touted as Africa’s natural candidate for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC). But front-runner status is not guaranteed. In the murky world of international diplomacy, Nigeria must play its cards far more deftly—or risk losing out to rivals.

Kenya and Ghana are already outflanking us. Kenya has sent police to gang-ravaged Haiti to help restore order—a strategic move that earns goodwill with key UNSC members. President William Ruto underscored this at UNGA80. Ghana, meanwhile, accepted deported nationals under President Trump’s hardline immigration policy. The U.S., an influential UNSC member, rewarded Ghana by restoring five-year multiple-entry visa privileges still withheld from Nigerians.

Nigeria, by contrast, rejected a similar U.S. request, forfeiting leverage. With insecurity at home and an economy needing revival, why didn’t we use this as a bargaining chip to seek US support to solve those debilitating socio-economic challenges and also strengthen our UNSC bid? Rather than being rigid why not be pragmatic? These are the tough questions our foreign-policy establishment must confront.

At UNGA80, the contrast between rhetoric and reality was on full display. U.S. President Donald Trump, never one for diplomatic niceties (even in the hallowed chamber of the UN, the citadel of diplomacy), blasted the UN’s lethargy and loss of focus, accusing it of drifting from the vision of its founders. He cited the practical bad examples of a dysfunctional escalator in the UN building, which he witnessed live and a faulty teleprompter, which compelled him to deliver his speech extempore. His speech resonated because the UN’s credibility is indeed waning—especially its failure to reflect today’s geopolitical realities.

When Nigeria took the podium, Vice President Kashim Shettima, on behalf of President Bola Tinubu, succinctly pressed the case for reform:

“When the UN was founded, Nigeria was a colony of 20 million people. Today, we are a sovereign nation of over 236 million, projected to be the world’s third most populous country, a stabilising force in regional security, and a consistent partner in peacekeeping. Our case for a permanent seat at the Security Council is a demand for fairness, representation, and reform.”

Nigeria’s credentials are strong. Since 1960, it has participated in 51 of 60 UN peacekeeping missions. It backs the Ezulwini Consensus and Sirte Declaration calling for at least two permanent African seats. It concluded that it is unjustifiable that  60% of UNSC resolutions concern Africa, and still no African country sits permanently at the table.

One would argue that the marginalisation echoes the 1884–85 Berlin Conference that carved up Africa amongst Europeans as spoils of World War ll—proof that the continent’s political exclusion endures 140 years later. In my view, it beggars belief that the UN, an institution born in the era of typewriters and telegrams, remains frozen while the world leaps ahead to artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.

Why has the UN become inured to archaic ways of doing things or a lack of progress and change?

If the UN is to survive as the cornerstone of global governance, it must evolve. Security Council reform is overdue, and Africa must be part of that change. Nigeria, as the continent’s largest democracy and economy, should lead—but leadership requires strategy.

That means taking bold steps to build alliances, leverage trade-offs, and position Nigeria as indispensable to the world’s security architecture. In other words, Nigerian foreign policy drivers have to become more pragmatic.

Kenya and Ghana are already playing the long game. We cannot afford business as usual.

Eight decades after the UN’s founding, the world has transformed beyond recognition. It’s time the UN—and Nigeria’s diplomacy—caught up.

At 80, the United Nations is looking more like a relic than a force for global stability. Secretary-General António Guterres’ UN80 initiative aims to modernise the institution, but reforms have been slow and resistance has been high.

The core problems are obvious:

• Outdated structure – Built for 51 member states in 1945, the UN now serves 193 and still operates under Cold War-era rules.
• Chronic funding gaps – The U.S. owes $1.5 billion, and other donors are pulling back.
• Security Council inequality – Five permanent members hold veto power while Africa, Latin America, and much of Asia remain sidelined.
• Bureaucratic bloat – Layers of overlapping mandates bog down action.

Meanwhile, an evolving and aggressive rival to the UN, BRICS, is rising fast. With 11 members representing 56% of the world’s population—including China, Russia, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, and Egypt—BRICS offers a very tempting rival vision of global order.

The timing is dire. Wars rage in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and DR Congo, fueling humanitarian disasters. Rather than tamping down conflicts, the UN increasingly looks like a bystander—its sanctions ignored, its resolutions toothless, its credibility fading.

Reform can’t wait. The Security Council must expand to include new economic and military powerhouses that have emerged across the seven 7), continents of the world. Bureaucracy must be streamlined and enforcement mechanisms rebuilt. Otherwise, the UN risks losing trust entirely, pushing more nations toward BRICS if it offers peace and progress, which the UN is struggling unsuccessfully to engender and foster.

The world is in turmoil. The UN was created to prevent exactly this moment. Either it reinvents itself now – or it becomes an artefact of the past.

• Magnus Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, democracy advocate, development strategist, and alumnus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA, is a Commonwealth Institute scholar and a former commissioner in the Delta State government. He sent this piece from Lagos.