By Bob Rae

January 25, 2026

I am writing these words on Robbie Burns’s birthday, in a snowbound New York City.

My reason for travelling here was to join in discussions taking place on the 80th anniversary of the first meeting in London of the Economic and Social Council ECOSOC, the United Nations charter body created to focus attention on the economic and social challenges of the world.

London in January of 1946 would have been a bleak place. Less destroyed than most of continental Europe, but cold, without central heating, amid a cityscape still marked by destruction and rubble. The air would have been full of the fog and smog of a coal- fired city.

The UN Charter signed in the previous year in San Francisco had a lot to say about the importance of the new economic and social order that would need to accompany the political and security focus of the postwar world.

There was a profound reason for that. When Roosevelt and Churchill met off the coast of Newfoundland in the summer of 1941 (before Pearl Harbour), they signed the Atlantic Charter, which set out the principles of a postwar world, including freer trade, self-determination, and an end to the protectionist and authoritarian regimes that had taken the world deep into the dark valley of depressions, unbridled nationalism and genocide.

Parallel to the negotiations that had led to the signing of the UN Charter, the victors of World War II also created what became known as the Bretton Woods institutions — the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund — that would be based in Washington.

The “creation story” of the UN avoids the central power dynamic that was front and centre in 1945. The Security Council would be the key instrument on peace and security, and its powers would be limited by the granting of vetoes to five countries — the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom and France.

There have been many justified complaints about the UNSC vetoes, but it needs to be understood that without them, there would have been no United Nations. As with Canada’s Charter of Rights and the notwithstanding clause, there was a hitch. And, as in “Animal Farm”, some nations were created more equal than others.

This inequality was also baked into the core economic and social institutions based in Washington. An American would always head the World Bank, because the U.S. was the controlling shareholder. A European would be allowed to head the IMF but with the similar understanding that the U.S. would have a predominant role.

With the decolonization and the rise of economic powers like China and India, at the United Nations there was steady pressure to create a wide range of institutions that could deal with the demands of development, health, and the myriad social and economic challenges facing the countries that emerged from colonial status in deep poverty.

Burns had a profound faith in brotherhood and humanity, and in the truth that, amid the pomposity and trumperies (his word) of great wealth and power, ‘a man’s a man for all that’.

Over time, these agencies took up the vast bulk of money that flowed into the global development system. The budget of the UN Secretariat and its peacekeeping arm was a pittance compared to the tens of billions (at its peak about $65 billion) that went to responding to humanitarian disasters, the needs of refugees, the global health system, human rights, women’s equality, and global development.

The “assessed contributions” (taxes) portion of all this is relatively small. Its largest payer has been the United States, followed closely by China. The vast majority of money required to support this system is made up of donations (what are called “voluntary contributions” in UN-speak). The US has been the largest contributor and has become the largest cutter.

Another aspect of the UN’s finances is that there is no organized structure for debt financing. So, money in, money out. This means that cash flow is king.

In David Copperfield, Mr. Micawber put it this way:

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds aught and six, result misery”.

In real life, Charles Dickens’ father went to debtor’s prison. The UN finds itself in a kind of prison of its own — cutting and chopping budgets to bring them in balance and then cutting and chopping again as the cash flow is delayed and reduced again and again. Tens of thousands of employees out the door. Vaccines cancelled. Rations in refugee camps cut, and then cut, and then cut again.

It is clear that the UN will have to make drastic changes if it is going to survive. But it is still lacking a clear path to change. Leadership has to shift from protests to articulating a sustainable course.

Most large organizations and governments all over the world have had to learn that there is a difference between steering and rowing, and that the functions of leadership and accountability get lost when too much time and money are spent trying to deliver services through large bureaucracies.

The task is made more difficult because UN members are nearly 200 in number, and all have their own agendas to pursue and their own interests to protect. But change is essential if multilateralism is to survive.

Mark Carney’s important Davos speech was well received here — people are hungry for leadership and change. The challenge is to get people to overcome distrust and self-interest and make change actually happen. It will probably require a new Secretary General to push forward with a new approach.

Canada can help by providing some consistent thought leadership and working with partners from across the system who understand the need for deep reforms and new approaches to avoid Mr Micawber’s misery.

I started by mentioning Robbie Burns, Scotland’s national hero and poet. Burns spoke with great beauty and irony of our loves and foibles, amply on display in his time and ours. He reminded us that “the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry” and “there is no greater uncertainty than a sure thing”.

Most important, he begged God “to give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us”.  Living in the shadow of the revolutions around him, Burns had a profound faith in brotherhood and humanity, and in the truth that, amid the pomposity and trumperies (his word) of great wealth and power, “a man’s a man for all that”.

Words to live by as we work to save the furniture of the institutions reeling amid the Trumperies of our time.

Policy Contributing Writer Bob Rae teaches and writes on law and public policy. He is a Fellow of Massey College, the Munk School at the University of Toronto, the Forum of Federations and Queen’s University. He served as Ontario’s 21st Premier, interim leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and Canada’s Ambassador to the UN.