Dear Friends,

Action for UN Renewal has been around for 15 years. It is a network of organisations and individuals campaigning for a more effective United Nations in areas of:

• Peace and international security
• Human Rights
• Development and poverty reduction
• Climate change and the environment
• Upholding the UN Charter and international law
• Reforms of the UN

We, in Action for UN Renewal, highlight the UN’s successes and at the same time work for its need for urgent Security Council and General Assembly Reforms. In an article by UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, which deserves a better light of day, wrote that the ‘UN is much than just talk,’ as it has a global peacekeeping force of 120,000 deployed in 18 peacekeeping operations on 4 continents. It feeds 90 million people in 70 countries. It gives 2 billion annually in emergency disasters and has wiped out diseases like Smallpox and Polio. It has implemented 172 peaceful settlements and allowed people in 45 countries to vote, so the UN is more than just talk.

However, it has its own weaknesses and can very quickly go into a stalemate. The obvious example is the paralysis in the UN Security Council where Russian and Chinese have vetoed and derailed multilateral initiatives on Georgia, Darfur and Zimbabwe. Owing to that, we at Action for UN Renewal campaign for the much needed reforms of the Security Council and the General Assembly. 

We organise events, participate in debates, publish newsletters, briefings and books.

Plans for 2009

We at Action for UN Renewal have exciting plans for the forthcoming year. We are hosting a number of events, prominent, among them are:

• 17th February, annual Erskine Childer’s lecture on ‘Saving Succeeding generations from the scourge of war’ by Nobel Peace Laureate, Mairead Corrigan Maguire.

Venue: Friends House, London

• 28th February, UNA Lymington branch, ‘Building better human rights’ by myself
• 7th March, Winchester Southern Region CND, ‘Working for a world free of Nuclear Weapons – what can the United Nations and Civil Society do?’ by myself
• 9th March, Lancaster University, ‘Responsibility to Protect – failing states from genocide, crimes against of humanity and war crimes.’ Speaker: Luckshan Abeysuriya, the former director of Amnesty International and myself
• 21st March, joint meeting with World Disarmament Campaign, Spring conference, ‘A New Cold War in Europe?’

Venue: Wesley Chapel, London

• 28th March, Action for UN Renewal AGM

Venue: Friends House, London

• 3-5th April, attending the Amnesty International conference in Swansea, Wales. We will have a fringe meeting and a stall at the conference. 
• 5-7th June, UNA annual conference. We will have a fringe meeting and a stall at the conference.

Venue: Edinburgh, Scotland

Other exciting plans include the launch of a climate change website and publishing a booklet for mitigating and containing the climate change crisis. We will be holding the Lobby of Parliament and other exciting events which are in the planning stage, which also include celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth.

We work for reforms of the UN – peace and international security, management reforms, eliminating human rights abuses, much needed funding for the UN, gender issues including the empowerment of women, system wide coherence – that are urgently needed to make the UN an effective, transparent and democratic institution.

The United Nations is the most universal world body. The priority in 2009 would be for us at Action for UN Renewal to make the United Nations and its agencies to live up to their original mandate, which was to bring all nations of the world together to work for peace and development, based on the principles of justice, human dignity and the well-being of all people.

We need to make sure that the future of the UN stays as a major contributor of people and ideas. UN should mobilise international civil society and global public opinion to carry forward a vision for a just and fairer world. Its strength is evident from the fact that when the United Nations passes a resolution, it is seen as speaking for humanity as a whole, thus giving t unique legitimacy and support for an action to be taken by a country. We highlight the fact that 191 member states should embark on a reform agenda for the Security Council which will make the UN accountable, transparent and democratic decision making body, an organisation fit for facing challenges and threats of 21st century successfully.

In an age when more and more of the problems facing humanity are global and the world has more and more need for a global institution through which to forge and implement global strategies, it is absolutely necessary for the UN to live up to the promise of its Charter – and, above all, to the demands and hopes of present and future generations.

We at Action for UN Renewal inform, educate and generate public debate to explore, implementation mechanisms and solutions for fixing the nuts and bolts of the international system to make the world a more humane place for us all.
We hope that you join us in our campaign for a better world.

Vijay Mehta
Chair
Action for UN Renewal