UN 'A Bystander' In Ukraine, Middle East Conflicts, Didn't Do Very Much During Covid: Jaishankar

India has been calling for the reform of multilateral organisations, including the expansion of the UN Security Council, to better reflect the current global realities.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Sunday said the United Nations (UN) was like “an old company, not entirely keeping up with the market”, but still occupying the space. The minister was speaking at the Kautilya Economic Conclave in Delhi.

According to ANI, he highlighted the organisation's decreasing relevance in addressing major global challenges in recent years, including the Covid pandemic and the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

"The United Nations is like an old company, not entirely keeping up with the market, but occupying the space," Jaishankar said at the event. "At the end of the day, however suboptimal it [UN] is in functioning, it is still the only multilateral game in town. But when it doesn't step up on key issues, countries figure out their own ways of doing it," he added. 

Notably, India has called for reform of multilateral organisations, including the expansion of the UN Security Council, to better reflect the current global realities.

Jaishankar said while the UN remains in existence, it is no longer the only platform for nations to collaborate on global challenges. Citing the Covid-19 pandemic as a prime example, Jaishankar questioned the UN's role during one of the most significant global crises of the last decade.

In the last 5-10 years, he said, Covid was “probably the biggest thing which happened in our lives“. He said the UN didn’t do “very much” during the pandemic. He added that countries were largely left to devise their own strategies or partner with others outside of the UN framework. He added that during the pandemic countries “either did their own thing” or “you had an initiative like COVAX”. 

Jaishankar also pointed to the two ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, questioning the UN's involvement. "Where is the UN on them, essentially a bystander?" he said.

He said the “UN will continue, but increasingly there's a non-UN space”, adding that it is “an active space”. Countries, he added, are forming new coalitions outside the UN to address global issues.