There is so much going on for a better world all around us that the mainstream media never shares. Throughout history, there have been many social movements for change ... for democracy, for the abolition of slavery, women's rights, for peace, for the environment ... Many advancements have been made, but each of these causes is just part of larger wish for a more peaceful, just and sustainable world. These diverse movements for thousands of different causes are beginning to converge and a more holistic movement --what UNESCO has described as a 'global movement for a culture of peace' -- is beginning to emerge. The Culture of Peace Movement is helping to unite the strengths of existing organizations and individuals so that creating a culture of peace really is now possible. -- Robert Alan Silverstein

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“From this vision of the role of the United Nations in the next century flow three key priorities for the future: eradicating poverty, preventing conflict and promoting democracy.”
-– Kofi Annan

“In the 21st century, I believe the mission of the United Nations will be defined by a new, more profound awareness of the sanctity and dignity of every human life, regardless of race or religion.”
-- Kofi Annan

“I believe that our world needs an instrument of global action as never before in history. I believe that the United Nations is the instrument for securing peace and for giving people everywhere, in poorer countries as in richer, a real stake in that peace by promoting development and encouraging cooperation. But the United Nations is only an instrument, an actor in need of props and cues from its directors, And so I will paraphrase Winston Churchill: Give us the tools—the trust, the authority and the means—and we will do the job."
-- Kofi Annan

 

* “There are millions of people all over the world, right now, who are looking to the United Nations for protection and redress against the violation of their rights and deprivation of their freedoms.” -– Louise Arbour

* "Today, we have more than 110,000 men and women deployed in conflict zones around the world. They come from nearly 120 countries ... Thanks to their efforts, life-saving humanitarian assistance can be delivered and economic development can begin. " -- Ban Ki-moon

"Today, we have more than 110,000 men and women deployed in conflict zones around the world. They come from nearly 120 countries -- an all-time high, reflecting confidence in United Nations peacekeeping. They come from nations large and small, rich and poor -- some of them countries recently afflicted by war themselves. They bring different cultures and experiences to the job, but they are united in their determination to foster peace. Some are in uniform, but many are civilians and their activities go far beyond monitoring. They train police, disarm ex-combatants, support elections and help build State institutions. They build bridges, repair schools, assist flood victims and protect women from sexual violence. They uphold human rights and promote gender equality. Thanks to their efforts, life-saving humanitarian assistance can be delivered and economic development can begin. "
-- Ban Ki-moon

* The UN is committed to the goal of ensuring that all nations share in economic, social, & scientific progress. It delivers humanitarian assistance to the victims of wars and natural disasters. -– Bill Bradley

One means of paying attention to smaller countries that have sometimes been overlooked is by revitalizing US leadership in the United Nations. The UN is committed to the goal of ensuring that all nations share in economic, social, & scientific progress. It delivers humanitarian assistance to the victims of wars and natural disasters. It provides a mechanism through which the US can help in dozens of conflicts around the world in which our vital interests aren’t directly involved but where we feel a more imperative to respond. Working with the UN’s diplomacy and development arms, we can prevent minor differences from escalating into wars. When conflicts do break out, UN peacekeepers should play a role in defusing and settling them. Without giving up our sovereignty, we can help the UN with better training and better command and control in order to develop more effective peacekeeping forces.
-– Bill Bradley

Of course the UN brings in a lot of moral authority. -- Lakhdar Brahimi * There is a story which is not being told strongly enough of the Afghan employees of the UN inside the country who are saving hundreds of thousands of lives everyday by their bravery and nobody talks of them. -- Lakhdar Brahimi

* “The United Nations is our one great hope for a peaceful and free world” -- Ralph J. Bunche The United Nations stands for the freedom and equality of all peoples, irrespective of race, religion, or ideology. -- Ralph J. Bunche The United Nations exists not merely to preserve the peace but also to make change - even radical change - possible without violent upheaval. The United Nations has no vested interest in the status quo. It seeks a more secure world, a better world, a world of progress for all peoples. In the dynamic world society which is the objective of the United Nations, all peoples must have equality and equal rights. -- Ralph J. Bunche

* What matters is the people. We must ensure that the United Nations is supported by the people and that it reflects the will of the people. -- Anwarul Chowdhury

* "At (UNHCR's) headquarters, I met extraordinary people, men and women, especially from the emergency team, who shared with me their passion, their dedication and their commitment to this organisation and refugees. They told me about the daily difficulties they have to face and also the joy they felt when they managed to save a person whose life was threatened." - Julien Clerc

* "Peace is not just a colored ribbon. It's more than a wristband or a t-shirt. It's not just a donation or a 5 K race. It's not just a folk song, or a white dove. And peace is certainly more than a celebrity endorsement. Peace is a fulltime job. It's protecting civilians, overseeing elections, and disarming ex-combatants. The UN has over 100,000 Peacekeepers on the ground, in places others can't or won't go, doing things others can't or won't do. Peace, like war, must be waged." -- George Clooney

* “If the United Nations is to survive, those who represent it must bolster it; those who advocate it must submit to it; and those who believe in it must fight for it.” -- Norman Cousins

* In a nutshell, this United Nations non-profit organization [World Food Programme] feeds millions of starving children at schools in third world countries as an incentive for them to attend school, which in turn might better their futures. They do so much more but I was so struck by this story. -- Sheryl Crow

* “If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.” -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

* "For all the civilians saved thanks to the presence of peacekeepers, there have been those who were lost – the United Nations personnel who sacrificed their lives for a noble cause. Even as we mourn our fallen colleagues, we are all uplifted by their unflinching commitment and are inspired to strive even harder for the collective cause so eloquently envisaged in the United Nations Charter: a world free from the scourge of war." -- Jan Eliasson (Former President of the UN General Assembly)

* "The UN Declaration of Human Rights laid down what any person might reasonably expect, yet there are remarkably few people who enjoy these rights. With cameras in the hands of activists and meaningful distribution of those images, we will witness what really goes on in this world and hopefully want to change it." -- Peter Gabriel

* We need to support the governments of the world to create the world we want and I also think we need to empower the UN so that the secretariat, the people who work day in and day out, know that the people are behind them. -- Jeremy Gilley

“Everything will be all right - you know when? When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction and see it as a drawing they made themselves.” -- Dag Hammarskjöld * The UN wasn’t created to take mankind into paradise, but rather, to save humanity from hell. -- Dag Hammarskjöld

"I never dreamed I would be a Goodwill Ambassador, and for UNESCO. Perfect organization. It is apolitical and it's about education, science and culture. I mean that is what I live. That is what UNESCO is really about; it's all about bringing human beings together with one common goal, which is to move human kind forward." -- Herbie Hancock

* The nations must be organized internationally and induced to enter into partnership, subordinating in some measure national sovereignty to worldwide institutions and obligations -- Arthur Henderson

"A world without the United Nations or with a paralyzed United Nations would be far more costly to all of us and far more dangerous to peace and stability."
-- Richard Holbrooke

* No achievement can be higher than that of working in harmony with other nations so that the lash of war may be lifted from our backs and a peace of lasting friendship descend upon us. -- Cordell Hull * Fortunately, the war has brought with it not alone a stark realization of what another war would mean to the world, but as well the creation of an international agency through which the nations of the world can, if they so desire, make peace a living reality. -- Cordell Hull

* “The heroes of the world community are not those who withdraw when difficulties ensue, not those who can envision neither the prospect of success nor the consequence of failure -- but those who stand the heat of battle, the fight for world peace through the United Nations.” -- Hubert Humphrey

* The United Nations is an organizational body where people, through their Governments, come together; and it can be the only place where there can be a melting pot. -- Asma Jahangir

* I am working for a better United Nations. Nothing is perfect. You should never rely on only one source, but rather rely on those you believe in the most.” ~ Angelina Jolie

* The one common undertaking and universal instrument of the great majority of the human race is the United Nations. A patient, constructive long-term use of its potentialities can bring a real and secure peace to the world. -- Trygve Lie

“The primary, the fundamental, the essential purpose of the United Nations is to keep peace. Everything it does which helps prevent World War III is good. Everything which does not further that goal, either directly or indirectly, is at best superfluous.”
-- Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

* UNESCO is the conscience of the United Nations. -- Federico Mayor

* Tell the people of all lands Let's get together the future is in our hands. United nations have to agree To say no to war, and yes to peace. -- Country Joe McDonald

* "I am very pleased to have been invited by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to become a United Nations Messenger of Peace. This is an opportunity to champion the United Nations' Millennium goals in a meaningful way. I look forward to being an advocate for the cause, working both through my own community engagement organizations and in collaboration with United Nations programmes.” -- Midori

* "I believe that UNICEF is the most important branch of the U.N.; they do exceptional work to help the neediest children around the world" -- Liam Neeson

We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest. -- Lester B. Pearson * Of all our dreams today there is none more important - or so hard to realise - than that of peace in the world. May we never lose our faith in it or our resolve to do everything that can be done to convert it one day into reality. -- Lester B. Pearson

* The aim of political institutions like the United Nations is to draw the line between struggle and conflict and to make it possible for nations to stay on the right side of that line… -- Javier Perez de Cuellar Human nature being what it is, peace must inevitably be a relative condition. The essence of life is struggle and competition, and to that extent perfect peace is an almost meaningless abstraction. Struggle and competition are stimulating, but when they degenerate into conflict it is usually both destructive and disruptive. The aim of political institutions like the United Nations is to draw the line between struggle and conflict and to make it possible for nations to stay on the right side of that line… -- Javier Perez de Cuellar

* ...convince all nuclear powers, including those which have been more reluctant up to now, of the necessity to respect the "vital interests" of all peoples and to become fully aware of the profound truth of the following conclusion which the United Nations approved by unanimity four years ago: "Mankind is confronted with a choice: we must halt the arms race and proceed to disarmament or face annihilation". ~ Alfonso García Robles

“We should change our attitude toward the United Nations. There has to be some power in the world superior to our own. We should not have attacked Iraq without the okay of the United Nations. Now we have to live with that mistake. We're living with it, and too many of our guys are dying with it.”
-- Andy Rooney

* "Nuclear disarmament is not just an ardent desire of the people, as expressed in many resolutions of the United Nations. It is a legal commitment ... for the sake of humanity - we must get rid of all nuclear weapons." -- Joseph Rotblat Indeed, the very first resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations - adopted unanimously - called for the elimination of nuclear weapons. -- Joseph Rotblat

* Despite a decade of criticism and budget cuts, the specialized UN agencies have far more expertise and hands-on experience than any other organizations in the world. -- Jeffrey Sachs The idea that UN commitments should be followed by action is indeed a radical one, especially for the United States, where wilful neglect of its own commitments is the rule. -- Jeffrey Sachs

* The United Nations is our world's greatest mechanism for making peace -- Gillian Sorensen

* “The whole basis of the United Nations is the right of all nations - great or small - to have weight, to have a vote, to be attended to” -- Adlai Stevenson

The U.N. acts as the world's conscience, and over eighty-five percent of the work that is done by the United Nations is in the social, economic, educational and cultural fields.
-- Shirley Temple

* Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect. We must each respect others even as we respect ourselves. ~ U Thant World federalists hold before us the vision of a unified mankind living in peace under a just world order. The heart of their program - a world under law - is realistic and attainable. ~ U Thant

There’s no longer a superpower standoff. But there are real problems that divide countries around the world. And the UN is still the place where we can get together and try and discuss them -- Shashi Tharoor * Universality of the UN is a worthwhile thing in its own self because it means that every country belongs, feels it has a stake, and participates, rather than going away and finding other methods of conducting international relations. -- Shashi Tharoor

“The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members”
-- Harry S Truman

"We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal right of men and women and of nations large and small....And for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors...have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims."
-- Preamble, Charter of the United Nations.

* The mythology about the UN is absolutely breathtaking. People believe it costs a great deal of money to the United States. Completely untrue: it doesn't. The United States makes a net gain. People believe it's a world government, although the UN is a pathetically weak organization which improvises in emergencies to try to prevent the worst from happening. -- Sir Brian Urquhart

There was an implicit conviction that the UN would be stronger than the sum of its constituent member-states -- Atal Bihari Vajpayee The UN's unique legitimacy flows from a universal perception that it pursues a larger purpose than the interests of one country or a small group of countries. -- Atal Bihari Vajpayee * The reality is that international institutions like the UN can only be as effective as its members allow it to be. -- Atal Bihari Vajpayee

* "Through your support of UN peacekeeping, you can help to make this tantalizing word—“peace”—a reality for all the world’s citizens. Together, we can spread the message that UN peacekeeping is essential. Without it, the world would be a much less stable, and more violent, place." ~ Timothy Wirth

United Nations Day - October 24

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