The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has been variously described as ‘Mr Invisible’ or ‘Slippery Eel’. Ban, who took office on January 23, 2007 retorts by saying that the UN’s work is often “unappreciated”. A 20-country survey of international opinion on the performance of world leaders, conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, showed that 83 per cent of South Koreans (his country of origin) appreciated his efforts, 70 per cent in Nigeria, 57 per cent in China, 49 per cent in Britain, 45 per cent in France and 40 per cent in India.

Ban says he believes in “results, not rhetoric”, in the Asian virtue of “quietly working on the phone, but being blunt behind closed doors”. So has the Secretary General achieved significant successes during his tenure so far? Or is the United Nations increasingly irrelevant in world affairs?

Some of the problems confronting the UN are:

• Hunger, extreme poverty, diseases (what Moon calls the “development emergency”).)

• Climate change

• Regional conflicts and authoritarianism

• Nuclear non-proliferation

• Restoring the credibility and neutrality of the United Nations

Notable success

• Toured Sudan, Chad and Libya in the wake of the Darfur crisis, persuading Sudanese president Omar Hassan al Bashir to allow an African Union-UN peacekeeping force beginning in October 2007.

• Convinced authorities in Myanmar to allow the Yangon international airport to be used for aid distribution by international agencies, in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.

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