By Invitation | A way back into the arena

The UN should stop trying to be everything to everyone

Its next secretary-general must cut overlap after decades of unchecked mandate expansion, argues Rafael Grossi, a candidate for the job

A portrait of Rafael Grossi
Illustration: Dan Williams
|5 min read

“THE UNITED NATIONS was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.” This phrase, invoked often by Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN’s second secretary-general, is as realistic a description today of what the organisation can and cannot do as it was in the mid-1950s. The next secretary-general, its tenth, will need to be equally realistic about the world as it is and the role the UN can play. That will mean doing less, better.

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