Modi calls for reform of UN

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pressed member states of the United Nations to use the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic to reform the global multilateral system to enhance its relevance and effectiveness to make it the basis for a “new type of human-centric globalisation”.

The United Nations was born 75 years ago to deal with the “furies” of the Second World War, the prime minister said addressing a high-level meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council. “Today the fury of the pandemic provides the context for its rebirth and reform. Let us not lose this chance.”

As an incoming member of the UN Security Council, India will play its role in full support of the UN agenda, “with our deep commitment to maintaining global harmony, to improving socio-economic equity, and to preserving nature’s balance”, the prime minister in his virtual speech in English on Friday.

This was the first time Modi had addressed UN members after India’s thumping victory in the June 17 election to the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member for a two-year term starting next January. India will get into the UNSC loop for documents and papers starting August, purely in an observer capacity to prepare it for its upcoming term.

India has called for reforming the global multilateral system to reflect the changed realities of the contemporary world. It has campaigned for the reform of the UN Security Council to expand its permanent membership with a seat for itself. And it has also sought the reform of the IMF and other global bodies to make them more contemporaneous.

“Today, while celebrating 75 years of the United Nations, let us pledge to reform the global multilateral system to enhance its relevance, to improve its effectiveness to make it the basis for a new type of human-centric globalisation,” Prime Minister Modi said renewing India’s call for reforms with an added emphasis on people, to make them more “human-centric”.

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