66th Birthday Celebration of the United Nations

UN Headquarters is located on international grounds in NYC

A Short History

• Born out of the ashes of World War II

• The Term “United Nations” was coined by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941

• The Charter of the UN entered into force on Oct. 24, 1945, the birthday of the UN

• Today the UN has 193 Member States– The last to join was the Republic of South

Sudan on July 14, 2011

• 6 official languages

A Short History

General Assembly

Each of the 193 members have an equal vote

Security Council

15 members: 5 permanent with veto power and 10 rotating every 2 years

Other bodies of the UN

• Secretariat

• Economic & Social Council

• International Court of Justice

• Trusteeship Council

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

15 Peacekeeping Operationson 4 continents

working with 123,640 peacekeepers

United Nations Peacekeepers

Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone

Humanitarian Relief

• UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):

– Facilitating organized response to emergencies from 35 offices across 4 continents with 1,900 staff members

– Help millions of afflicted people

Head of OCHAMs. Valerie Amos

Ways the UN makes a Difference

Humanitarian ReliefHaiti 2010 Japan 2011

Libya 2011 USASomalia 2011

Poverty & Sustainable Development

• What is sustainability?– Development that meets current needs without

damaging the earth for future generations

• UN Development Programme (UNDP)

Green Economy

Poverty & Sustainable Development

Climate Change

• Human action is changing long-term weather patterns:– Causing raising sea levels, and extremes such as

droughts, severe storms and floods – Impacts availability of basic necessities, such as water

• Recycling and Energy Saving 101

Climate Change

• 2011 International Year of Forests– “Forests for

People”

• Forest Facts– Deforestation

• WED: World Environment Day – Every June 5

since 1972

• WED Challenge– Don Cheadle vs.

Gisele Bündchen (winner!)

Education

Afghanistan

Education

unicef

HIV/AIDS

• Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)

• Facts and Figures

UNAIDS

• The “Three Zeros”:1. Zero new HIV infections2. Zero discrimination3. Zero AIDS-related deaths

• UN High Level Meeting on AIDS: 8-10 June 2011- Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS

• UN Visitors Centre on Facebook• Visitors website: http://visit.un.org/• UN Channel on YouTube:

www.youtube.com/unitednations/• UN on Twitter @UN: http://twitter.com/un• UN Foundation: www.unfoundation.org/• E-mail: inquiries@un.org

Learn more about the UN