The United Nations

More than 60 Years of Extraordinary Accomplishments

"…better standards of life in larger freedom."
—Preamble of Charter of UN—

The accomplishments of the UN in its first 60 years are extraordinary—here are a few:

• The UN has a focus on World Health. Such work, in partnership with other humanitarian agencies, has resulted in Universal Immunization for polio, tetanus, measles, whooping cough, diphtheria & tuberculosis—worldwide immunization is up from 5% to 80% and saves the lives of more than 3 million children each year.
• The UN works to eradicate the leading cause of death worldwide—Malaria. More than one million people die of this parasitic disease each year—a child dies from this disease every 30 seconds. The UN has contributed to saving 7 million children from going blind from the river blindness and rescuing others from guinea worm, malaria & other tropical diseases by fighting parasitic diseases. This is an extraordinary accomplishment and an ongoing challenge for the UN.
• The UN worked to make safe drinking water available to 1.3 billion people.
• The UN distributes 2 million tons of food each year and is a first responder to international needs—natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes and conflict zones.
• The UN responded to the Tsunami of 2004 within 48 hours and is still there in 2006.
• The UN, through UNICEF, responded immediately to the USA Hurricane Katrina that devastated the Gulf Coast States. UNICEF provided grants and materials for teachers and students to help get normalcy back into the lives of these children and families.
• The UN is credited with negotiating over 170 peaceful settlements that have ended regional conflicts.
• The UN has enabled people in over 45 countries to participate in free and fair democratic elections.
• A primary goal of the UN has been to eradicate colonialism. In 1945, more than 750 million people lived in colonial or dependent territories. Today, less than 1.5 million people, out of a world population of more that 6 billion, live in dependent territories.
• The UN has a focus on universal education. Since 1990, more than 50 million more primary age children have been enrolled in schools—a country like Oman once provided about 900 boys with education, and today there are about 500,000 children in school in Oman—49% are girls.
• The UN helps to clear a path to a safer world through work to eliminate landmines, which kill or injure about 2,000 people each month—mostly children. This work is carried out by Adopt-A-Minefield, a UN program.
• Some 150 wars have been waged during the past 50 years. None of them turned into devastating World Wars—the world consensus is that the UN's work for peace and disarmament played a key role in this regard.

In the course of human history, there has never been an organization that has so effectively given so much to humanity.

The United Nations Association of Wake County thanks you for visiting this website. We invite you to sample the menu on the homepage to learn more about the UN and UNA-Wake activities. We also invite you to join UNA-Wake and become a supporter of the UN goals for more extraordinary accomplishments.