Why hasn’t the United Nations done more to end the violence in Gaza? Or, for that matter, the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan or Ukraine?

These are questions that UN officials find themselves fielding not just with mounting frequency but rising passion and frustration. For it is hard to recall a time when the world confronted so many seemingly intractable crises, and when the body designed to resolve and mediate them looked so thoroughly incapable of doing so.

“Why the UN Can’t Solve the World’s Problems” ran an accusatory headline over the weekend in the New York Times, a newspaper that’s something of a parish pump for UN diplomats.

BBC News – Conflicted UN struggles in global peace efforts.