What role does the United Nations play now?

0:00unknown U.N. insider:This is Ira Glass.

0:01Antonio Guterres:On This American Life, we tell stories about when things change.

0:04unknown U.N. insider:Like for this guy, David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected, and very unpleasant turn. And it did take me a while to realize it's basically because the monkey pressed the button. That's right.

0:16Antonio Guterres:Because the monkey pressed the button. Surprising stories every week, wherever you get your podcasts. Today on State of the World, what role does the United Nations play now?

0:33Antonio Guterres:You're listening to State of the World from NPR, a human perspective on global events. It's Monday, September 21st. I'm Greg Dixon. The United Nations General Assembly and its annual gathering of world leaders is underway in New York. In a few minutes, we'll hear from a U.N. insider about the relevance of the body in world politics today. But first, this General Assembly is the last for the current Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. NPR's diplomatic correspondent, Michelle Kellerman, looks at the challenges he faces in his final months in the job. Antonio Guterres says he's not ready to look back on his 10 years as Secretary General.

1:13Antonio Guterres:There's just too much to do with Russia's war against Ukraine in its fifth year and the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran upending global trade. The only path forward is de-escalation, diplomacy and dialogue. But the Security Council set up in the aftermath of World War II is divided, and big powers are not leading by example. So the Secretary General says other countries feel they can do what they want. And that impunity has created this environment in which we see more and more countries violating international law, more and more countries violating human rights law and doing it in total impunity.

1:49Antonio Guterres:Guterres has spent a decade swimming against the tide of global history. That's Richard Gowan, director for Global Issues and Institutions at the International Crisis Group, a think tank focused on conflict prevention. He says Guterres has served during a period of fragmentation in global affairs, even as he's tried to keep the world focused on challenges from climate change to artificial intelligence. In some ways, he has been defending the idea of international cooperation almost after it's too late. About 120 leaders are gathering at the United Nations this week, but Gowen does not expect any major breakthroughs on the conflicts in the Persian Gulf or Ukraine, conflicts that have global implications.

2:34Antonio Guterres:The leaders of India and South Africa are expected to skip this year, and China's Xi Jinping, who has only once attended the General Assembly in person, will skip again this year, even though he's expected at the White House on Thursday. There's going to be a bit of a split-screen moment, because on the one hand you're going to have the leaders of China and the US meeting in Washington, and then on the other hand you're going to have leaders of smaller countries continuing to give speeches in a pretty empty General Assembly hall. And I think that in itself could actually send a bit of a message about where power really lies.

3:10Antonio Guterres:The Trump administration withdrew from the UN's World Health Organization and an international agreement to combat climate change. It also dismisses the UN Sustainable Development Goals as part of a globalist agenda. But after dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Trump administration has committed several billion dollars to the UN Office on Humanitarian Affairs. It's run by Tom Fletcher, who's been posting videos online ahead of the UN High Level Week. Our trolls call us weak, incompetent, divided. But every time you hear someone attack us, ask yourself why they want a world in which the United Nations is weaker.

3:50Antonio Guterres:In this video, Fletcher walks around the Security Council calling for, in his words, reform with ambition. The UN was not a ship that was built to stay in harbor. These are times of greed, indifference, selfishness, recklessness. And the UN was built for times like these. And he's hoping the U.N.'s high-level week will live up to that. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News. For more on the U.N. and what its future may be, we're going to hear now from Mark Malik Brown. He served as Deputy Secretary General of the U.N. in 2006, among other positions he had there. He's also co-host of The World's Toughest Job.

4:32Antonio Guterres:It's a podcast series on the challenges facing the next Secretary General. He spoke to NPR's Michelle Martin. So as we heard, the UN is increasingly seen as ineffective. What do you think?

4:44unknown U.N. insider:Well, look, the UN is in many ways a mirror held up to the state of the world. And therefore, when the world is divided and when you have an extraordinary level of conflicts at the moment, there are 65 interstate conflicts, more than at any time since the end of the Second World War. Or when you have that kind of fragmented world, you know, the UN reflects it. And occasionally, under great leadership, it can get a step or two better than the state of the world it represents. But it is always tied to that. It's limited by the condition of the world more generally, let me put it that way.

5:23Antonio Guterres:Are there any particular issues in which you think the UN has actually done something to ease the suffering caused by these many conflicts that perhaps we're not aware of?

5:35unknown U.N. insider:It's gotten a pretty sorry record. I mean, I think many of us who are veterans of the organization, while we recognize the difficulty for the UN Secretary General and his team to make headway on the superpower conflicts, Iran and the Middle East or Ukraine, you know, we're frustrated that we're not seeing progress on what are in some ways second tier conflicts, although in some cases even more deadly in terms of loss of life. and notable on that list is Sudan, which has a lot of regional actors who are stoking that conflict. But it is one where the right kind of determined diplomacy that brings the players together could make a real difference.

6:21unknown U.N. insider:And we just don't see that happening. So I think everybody's looking to this General Assembly and the likely election of a new Secretary General as a pretty important watershed moment.

6:34Antonio Guterres:I think just speaking of this with people who aren't perhaps not aware, I mean, that crisis in Sudan is deemed to have caused perhaps the world's worst humanitarian crisis with millions of people displaced both internally and externally with really no sort of national actors committed to making any progress there that we are hearing. So let's talk about the leadership at the UN. Mr. Guterres' term is ending. Is it fair to say that the lack of progress over these many conflicts is in part due to failures of leadership on his end?

7:02unknown U.N. insider:Well, partly, but it's also the gridlock in the Security Council. But I think what all of us who are concerned about this selection of the next Secretary General believe is that with a gridlocked Security Council and a General Assembly, which is just too big to play any kind of real executive role, it has 193 member states, that that does create space for a creative Secretary General, a diplomatically creative one, who can see where the overlaps are between the position of different countries and seize on them and drive some kind of diplomatic process forward and get mediations going. And it's that lack of engagement and energy which has been frustrating.

7:48unknown U.N. insider:And I think, you know, if a new Secretary General can then put some early wins on the scoreboard, she or he will build a momentum and an authority which then allows them to tackle some of the bigger crises. And the first hundred days or so of a new Secretary General will be critical because it'll give a chance where there's world attention on that individual and the UN more generally to really turn the ship around and show that there is still energy in the old body yet.

8:20Antonio Guterres:As briefly as you can, are there leading candidates for the job? And do they, in your opinion, have the skill set that would be needed to try to get those early wins?

8:29unknown U.N. insider:Well, at the moment, there are seven candidates and the two who are leading, Rebecca Grinspan of Costa Rica, a longtime UN official and veteran, and Caroline Rodriguez-Burkett, a former foreign minister of Guyana, who's a favorite with permanent representatives of whom she's been one in New York. Both these two are viewed by UN insiders as very capable, decent individuals with a high level of integrity. But there is a suspicion that we probably haven't yet seen the likely winner in the race at the moment, that there are probably still more candidates to enter, because neither of these two or the other candidates have yet ignited enthusiasm.

9:13Antonio Guterres:All right. That is former UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malik-Brown. Mr. Malik Brown, thank you so much.

9:18unknown U.N. insider:Thank you, Michelle.

9:25Antonio Guterres:That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.

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9:49unknown U.N. insider:Head to a DSW store or dsw.com today for shoes that get you at prices that get your budget. DSW, let us surprise you. This week on Up First, we talk about the economy. Trucks, trains, and tractors run on diesel, which is now priced at record highs, with less than 50 days until the midterm elections. So the next six weeks are gonna be intense. Let Up First get you through it one morning at a time with three stories you need to know each day.

10:19Antonio Guterres:Listen to Up First on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.