The UN is working to make the world
a better place

• The UN formulated the historic Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), as well as some 80 conventions and treaties that help protect and promote specific human rights.
  


• UN peacekeeping is a vital instrument for peace. Currently, nearly 67,000 UN military and civilian personnel, provided by 103 countries, are engaged in 16 operations around the world.



• UN environmental conventions have helped reduce acid rain in Europe and North America, cut marine pollution worldwide, and phase out production of gases destroying the Earth's ozone layer.



• The UN and its agencies, including the World Bank and the UN Development Programme, are the premier vehicle for furthering development in poorer countries, providing assistance worth $30 billion a year.



• More international law has been developed through the UN in the past six decades than in all previous history.



• With support from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization – a joint effort of UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank Group, private foundations, the pharmaceutical industry and governments – over 670,000 deaths were averted among children born between 2001 and 2003.



• In 2003, the WFP reached 110 million people with food aid – a record in its 40-year history.



• Air traffic the world over is safer, thanks to rules and regulations agreed on trough the International Civil Aviation Organization.



• UN appeals raised nearly $3.4 billion during 2003 alone for emergency assistance to victims of war and natural disaster.



• Smallpox was eradicated from the world through a global campaign coordinated by WHO.



• Five million people who would have been paralyzed are walking today because of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, launched in 1988 by WHO, UNICEF, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Rotary International - reducing the incidence of polio worldwide by more than 99 per cent.



• Expenditures of the UN System for economic and social programmes to help the world's poorest countries - through UNICEF, WFP, UNDP and others - amount to $7.3 billion a year. That's les than 0.8 per cent of the world military expenditures, estimated at $956 billion.