What obstructs the United Nations from becoming a real global body?

The UN has lost its sheen in recent times. One example is that its Secretary General Guterres' entreaty for a global ceasefire to help combat the coronavirus has gone largely unheeded. His plea for contributions to a 10 billion dollar emergency coronavirus response plan to help the neediest had been met with commitments totalling just a quarter of the goal. That response barely justifies the description tepid, said Mark Lowcock, the top UN relief official. The United Nations, which has grown from 50 members 75 years ago to 193 members and a global staff of 44,000, was intended at its inception to provide a forum in which countries large and small believed they had a meaningful voice. But its basic structure gives little real power to the main body, the General Assembly, and the most to the World War Two victors, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, with each wielding a veto on the 15-seat Security Council as permanent members. The council is empowered to impose economic sanctions and is the only entity permitted to deploy military force. No permanent member seems willing to alter the power structure. The outcome is chronic Security Council deadlocks on many issues, often pitting the United States against not only China and Russia but also against US allies. It is not only on questions of war and ceasefire where the United Nations is struggling for results. The Sustainable Development Goals, 17 UN objectives aimed at eliminating inequities that include poverty, gender bias and illiteracy by 2030, are imperiled. An expert of the Global Policy Forum, a UN monitoring group, told a conference that the objectives were seriously off track even before the pandemic. UN veterans say multilateralism, solving problems together, a tenet of the organisation's charter, increasingly collides with principles in the same charter emphasising national sovereignty and non-intervention in a country's internal affairs.