The United Nations Organization, better known as the UN, was founded after World War II with a faithful purpose of solving the world’s biggest problems and having a commitment to support social progress, better life, human rights, and more topics.
To date, it is considered the only Organization in the world with a truly universal character, which is why it has become the main forum for addressing issues that transcend national borders and that cannot be resolved by a country acting alone.
The UN is generating initiatives and taking action in this regard, but… what are the problems that humanity is facing and how is it possible to solve them? Below we share the 15 largest.
15 biggest problems in the world
Lack of economic opportunities and unemployment
Unemployment is generated when there are more people willing to work but the positions do not exist or are not available for them. The unemployment rate refers to the proportion of employed people with respect to the population of working age, and to calculate it, those people who, being of working age (between 16 and 65 years old) and actively seeking, do not find a job, are taken. that is, what is known as the active population.
Having a high unemployment rate is a serious problem for a country as it directly affects economic growth, in addition to the problem for people who are unemployed.
Thus, the effects of unemployment, on the one hand, can be economic, such as a decrease in real production, a decrease in demand, and an increase in the public deficit. But it can also cause social effects such as psychological effects or discriminatory effects.
And this situation has worsened as a result of the pandemic. According to data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) he argued in a new report that although the nations of the world will “get out” of the current health crisis, “five years of progress towards the eradication of working poverty have been undone.”
The most affected regions in the first half of 2021 have been Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and Central Asia, all victims of an uneven recovery.
How to solve it?
Unemployment can be solved if the government plans it properly from the beginning. There are several ways to solve the natural rate of unemployment, and in some Governments and society can work together such as:
- Ensure political stability.
- Improve educational standards.
- Have control of population growth in the nation.
- Launch new empowerment programs.
- Encourage self-employment/entrepreneurship.
- Ensure access to basic education.
- Lower the retirement age.
- Be creative, positive, and competitive.
With all this, policies that improve economic growth should be implemented such as: having lower taxes, avoiding investing in inappropriate programs, and overregulation of industries.
Insecurity
According to information from the UN, the growing violence and the feeling of insecurity that people living in cities face daily is one of the main challenges in the world. In some countries, crime and violence have increased due to gun proliferation, substance abuse, and youth unemployment.
If analyzed in relation to gender, there is a clear trend: homicide victims in Latin America are fundamentally male, since the number of murdered men is nearly 10 times higher than that of female homicide victims.
In turn, for women, the risk of being injured is associated with sexual violence. Regarding young people, it is the group where the largest number of homicide victims is concentrated, constituting young people as the main perpetrators and at the same time victims of violence.
The relationship between socioeconomic distribution and violent crime is strong and Latin American cities are among the most unequal, some of them topping the list worldwide. Despite the general improvement in socioeconomic distribution, urban inequities have increased and hardened in the last decade.
As a consequence of this situation, in highly unequal cities and with problems of endemic poverty, conflicts, and urban fractures, political tension and insecurity are created.
How to solve it?
According to information from the Forum of Latin American Security Professionals, it is necessary to take measures, among others, such as:
- Promote close and efficient justice to the community.
- Improve prison systems and infrastructures.
- Purge the bad elements of public security and justice.
- Have timely and rigorous information on criminal occurrences.
- Prioritize prevention vs. repression.
- Priority social care for youth.
- Carry out planned work on intra-family violence.
- Have the recovery of public spaces.
Racism
Another of the world’s biggest problems is racism. Which is determined as the hatred, rejection, or exclusion of a person due to their race, skin color, ethnic origin, or language, which prevents them from enjoying their human rights. This is caused by an irrational feeling of superiority of one person over another.
Racism and intolerance can take various forms: from the denial of the basic principles of equality of people to the incitement of ethnic hatred that can lead to genocide and forced displacements, which destroy lives and divide communities.
This problem causes enormous suffering to millions of people around the world because it prevents social mobility, and generates slavery and inequality in areas such as the ideological, economic, educational, and cultural spheres.
How to solve it?
According to an article published by Saúl Velasco Cruz, PhD in Sociology and Research Professor at the National Pedagogical University of Mexico, there are three basic ways to combat it:
- Tolerance: The recognition and acceptance of differences between people. It is learning to listen to others, to communicate with them, and to understand them. It is the recognition of cultural diversity.
- Anti-discrimination laws: One of the main instruments in this area is the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which is considered the most complete relative to the fight against racial discrimination, and was adopted by the Assembly General of the United Nations on December 21, 1963.
However, Velasco considers that the suppression of discrimination, if this is possible, cannot be achieved simply with the threat of the law, since it will be an insufficient resource if it is not directly supported with measures that persistently and systematically prevent the formation of discriminatory and racist behaviors, such as those that education is capable of promoting.
- Education: Have educational models to introduce into direct educational practice the issue of interaction between different cultures, using the values of tolerance and non-discrimination.
Migration
Migration is the change of residence that implies the transfer of some duly defined geographical or administrative limit. If the border that is crossed is of an international nature (border between countries), the migration is renamed “international migration”.
If the border that is crossed corresponds to some type of duly recognized demarcation within a country (between administrative divisions, between urban and rural areas, etc.), the migration is called “internal migration”.
This transfer of people entails serious problems such as family disintegration, abuse, abandonment, emotional disorders, alcoholism, social problems such as crime, and drug addiction, and physical, psychological, and even sexual abuse.
In 2019 alone, the number of international migrants (people residing in a country other than their country of birth) reached almost 272 million worldwide —48% women— compared to 258 million in 2017. Of these, 164 million are migrant workers.
How to solve it?
- World Economic Forum shares some ways:
- Address the factors that drive involuntary migration and create more legal pathways for migration.
- Go back to the basics, to the historically positive nature of migration, and see the positive parts as the contribution of new ideas, economic contribution to their host and origin countries, and job creation, among others.
- Dispel stereotypes such as that migrants generate insecurity, in fact, there is no record that demonstrates these trends or that they bring diseases with them.
Lack of education
Education is considered a fundamental element not only for the development of an entire country but for society in general. Therefore, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) promotes human rights and the rule of law in its spheres of competence, with special emphasis on the right to education.
Some indicators of education in Mexico, for example, show an improvement in absolute terms, as in the case of the average level of schooling or illiteracy, but the challenges facing the system are still important.
Regarding the pressures to work, the lack of financial resources is the most important reason why young people decide to abandon their studies. Additionally, the lack of interest in the study in men, and pregnancy in women, is the second reason why they decide to withdraw from the system and look for other options that fit their circumstances or their expectations.
This situation worsened after the health emergency, since as of March 28, 2020, more than 1.6 billion children and young people were not attending school in 161 countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This represents about 80% of school-age students in the world.
How to solve it?
Some organizations are already getting down to work to work on this problem, one of them is UNESCO. This organization exercises global and regional leadership in education, strengthens education systems around the world, and responds to global challenges through education, with gender equality as an underlying principle.
Their work spans educational development, from preschool to higher education and beyond. In addition, SDG 4: Quality Education, is also seeking to ensure inclusive, equitable, and quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Food and nutrition security
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), since the World Food Summit (WFS) in 1996, Food Security at the individual, household, national, and global levels has been achieved when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and preferences, in order to lead an active and healthy life.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 proclaimed that “Every person has the right to an adequate standard of living that ensures the health and well-being of himself and his family, especially food. The basic elements of having Food and Nutrition Security are:
Availability of food locally or nationally.
Stability refers to having control over the cyclical processes of crops, as well as having silos and warehouses for contingencies in times of food deficit.
Access and Control over the means of production such as land, water, inputs, technology, knowledge, and food available in the market.
Consumption and biological use, existence, safety of food, dignity, and hygienic conditions as well as the equitable distribution of these within households.
However, current estimates indicate that about 690 million people suffer from hunger, or 8.9% of the world’s population (an increase of about 10 million people in one year and about 60 million in five years).
How to solve it?
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 report argues that, when sustainability considerations are taken into account, a shift to healthy diets around the world would help control the rise in hunger, which would lead to huge savings, so one of the tools to find the solution is to bet on sustainable development.
In addition, food is also at the heart of the 17 SDGs, specifically in the SDG: Zero Hunger, which seeks to end hunger by 2030 and ensure access for all people, particularly the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to a healthy, nutritious and sufficient diet throughout the year, among other objectives.
Inequality
Inequality is a socioeconomic circumstance in which a group or community is treated differently by other subjects or groups in its environment. And according to UN data, this isn’t just about wealth, net worth, or income.
It can also cover life expectancy, the ease with which people have to access health services, quality education, or public services. There are inequalities between genders and between social groups.
In addition, inequality increases and persists because some groups have more influence over the legislative process, preventing other groups from making the system responsive to their needs. This leads to policy distortions and undermines the democratic process.
An Oxfam study indicates that 26 people have the same wealth as 3.8 billion people. Meanwhile, more than a quarter of all working adults are poor, earning less than $3.10 a day.
How to solve it?
Some alternatives shared by Oxfam —an international confederation made up of 19 non-governmental organizations that carry out humanitarian work— are:
- Invest in cooperation and development.
- Guarantee the protection of civilians in humanitarian emergencies.
- Creation of fair tax systems.
- Improve access to basic public resources.
- Reduce wage gaps.
Gender violence
Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread violations of human rights in the world. Many cases occur every day in all corners of the planet.
This type of violence has serious physical, economic, and psychological consequences on women and girls, both in the short and long term, by preventing them from participating fully and equally in society. The magnitude of this impact, both in the lives of individuals and families and in society as a whole, is immense.
The conditions created by the pandemic – lockdowns, mobility restrictions, increased isolation, stress, and economic uncertainty – have led to an alarming increase in violence against women and girls in the private sphere and have further exposed women and girls to other forms of violence, from child marriage to online sexual harassment.
How to solve it?
Faced with this problem, the Executive Director of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet, has prepared an agenda of policies that could put an end to violence against women in the world, among them are:
- Ratify international and regional treaties.
- Adopt and comply with laws.
- Create national and local action plans.
- Making justice accessible to women and girls.
- End impunity for sexual violence in conflict.
- Guarantee universal access to essential services.
- Collect, analyze, and disseminate national information.
Corruption
Corruption is the abuse of power for personal gain. It can be classified into large-scale, petty, and political corruption, depending on the amount of funds lost and the sector in which it occurs. For example, there is corruption on a grand scale, underage and political.
According to Transparency.org, in the recent year, the Corruption Perceptions Index paints a bleak picture of the state of corruption around the world. Most of the countries assessed have not registered any progress in the fight against corruption in almost a decade and more than two-thirds score below 50.
The countries with the highest scores are Denmark and New Zealand, with 88 points, followed by Finland, Singapore, Sweden, and Switzerland with 85 each. The lowest scores correspond to South Sudan and Somalia, with 12 points each, followed by Syria (14), Yemen (15) and Venezuela (15).
Corruption limits economic and social development, affects investment, decreases the effectiveness of social programs and increases inequality, and also has an approximate cost of between 8% and 10% of GDP
How to solve it?
The Ethos group, Public Policy Laboratory, prepared the report Deciphering Corruption, which analyzes the causes and consequences of corrupt acts and seeks to provide clues to deal with them, and provides some solutions :
- Oversee the correct allocation and execution of resources to combat corruption.
- Simplify and modernize bureaucratic processes for the granting of government services.
- Monitor the implementation of local anti-corruption systems.
- Promote the culture of legality as part of the fight against corruption.
- Promote citizen complaints about corruption practices.
Religious conflicts
Religious intolerance is a form of intolerance against the religious beliefs or practices (or lack thereof) of a person or group. It can be motivated both by different religious beliefs and by other kinds of ideologies, as well as by anti-religious sentiment. A fact that provokes religious conflicts on multiple occasions.
Fabián Sanabria, anthropologist and doctor in sociology from the University of the Sorbonne, explains that religious beliefs in themselves are not harmful anywhere. Conflicts (and violence) come from the social, cultural, and political implications they have (beliefs) in people’s lives.
But… “When land, truth, honor, economy, superiority over others are at stake, there is a mobilization of beliefs to stigmatize or attack other people,” he explains. The academic says that it all starts when you want to impose a single god and a single way of seeing and understanding the world. “When there is such a strong confrontation, both want to have their truth and for others to adopt it.”
How to solve it?
The UN’s main global normative framework to combat religious intolerance, stigma, discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against people based on religion or belief is set out in Council Resolution 16/18.
Said resolution was adopted by consensus in March 2011 and was hailed by actors from all regions and faiths as a turning point in international efforts to confront religious intolerance. However, this has not had the expected results. So there are already new projects that offer recommendations to strengthen compliance in the future and provide a platform for dialogue and strengthen consensus.
Pandemics
A pandemic is defined as the worldwide spread of a disease in a fairly short period of time. Pandemics are usually caused by influenza viruses that significantly affect animals, no matter where they are.
In humans, it can affect people of any age, however, the most susceptible are the elderly and people who suffer from a disease, for this reason, pandemics are considered one of the biggest problems in the world.
Among its consequences is demographic decline, as well as family and social disruption, and economic crises. In addition to this, the number of migrations increases, because people flee from one country to another trying to escape the calamity.
How to solve it?
One proposal comes from Preventing pandemics at the source, and includes, first of all, locating specific areas of the globe where it is estimated that there are possibilities of new outbreaks and promoting dialogue between sectors that are usually disconnected: health, environment, agriculture, food and nutrition to achieve coordinated actions aimed at preventing future highly damaging epidemics.
By including political representatives, local organizations, and interdisciplinary teams in their working groups, effective measures can be taken that really achieve a change in management that allows for reducing the risks of zoonoses.
Populism
It is a set of political ideas that appeal to the great social masses, characterized by being difficult to apply. They are usually unrealistic measures that seek to persuade voters.
Populism is characterized by, appealing to the feelings and passions of the voter, and mobilizing the mass vote of the large social groups of a population. He leaves aside rationalism and proposes measures that, despite dazzling his constituents, are of dubious compliance.
Populists deliberately use the growing fears of the middle classes in the face of processes of social transformation. The differentiation of lifestyles and individualism in modern societies, in combination with a high level of immigration, causes feelings of cultural threat and fears of loss of collective identity.
The media —threatened by the introduction of digital technologies and who, in order to survive, work under reduced working hours and breaking taboos— echo the radicalism of the populists.
How to solve it?
According to information from an article published in the Republic, some ways to avoid populism are the following:
- Promote fair and humane treatment in general to society.
- Closing generation gaps, involving more young people in decision-making positions. There is no other more efficient way to understand and build.
- Eliminate the qualifiers that can denigrate people.
Promote criteria. Think, evaluate, do not forward news or spread it without first making sure of its veracity.
Poverty
Poverty goes beyond the lack of income and resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods. It is a human rights problem. Among the different manifestations of poverty are hunger, malnutrition, lack of decent housing, and limited access to other basic services such as education or health.
In 2015, more than 736 million people lived below the international poverty line. Currently, around 10% of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty and has difficulties meeting their most basic needs, such as health, education, and access to water and sanitation, among other things.
Today, there are 122 women between the ages of 25 and 34 living in poverty for every 100 men in the same age group, and more than 160 million children are at risk of continuing to live in extreme poverty in 2030.
According to an article on the Ayuda en Acción portal, currently, many of the causes of poverty are historically inherited, further aggravated by the passage of time. If we observe them, we will realize that they all have a common feature and that is that they generate inequality:
- War conflicts and violence.
- Effects of climate change.
- Lack of adequate medical assistance.
- Lack of access to education.
- Lack of access to drinking water and sanitation.
- Nutritional deficiencies in the diet.
How to solve it?
To date, there are already various initiatives working to eradicate poverty, including Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms throughout the world. One of the keys to achieving this is to guarantee a significant mobilization of resources from various sources, including the improvement of international development cooperation.
The goal is to provide sufficient and predictable means to developing countries, particularly the least developed so that they can implement policies and programs aimed at ending poverty in all its dimensions.
Climate change
It is the global variation of the Earth’s climate. This variation is due to natural causes and the actions of man. It occurs on all climatic parameters: temperature, rainfall, cloudiness, etc., at very different time scales.
This is not just an environmental phenomenon, but one with profound economic and social consequences: from changing weather patterns that threaten food production; to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding.
We are currently at a decisive moment to successfully face the greatest challenge of our time: climate change. Every day, at different points in the world’s geography, the planet sends us messages about the enormous transformations it is undergoing:
From changing weather patterns that threaten food production; to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding.
The effects of climate change affect us all. If drastic measures are not taken now, it will be much more difficult and costly to adapt to its effects in the future.
How to solve it?
Achieving agreements between countries: a sustainable system that also generates wealth and self-management for the people.
Achieve the reduction of greenhouse gases through international agreements that commit countries not to exceed the limits established between nations.
Carrying out individual actions: Carrying out visible actions in practice that produce a change of consciousness in society. Changes in habits encourage citizens to change their customs to finally act with a new awareness.
War conflicts
Globally, the absolute number of deaths in wars has been declining since 1946. However, conflicts and violence are on the rise, and most of today’s conflicts are fought between non-state actors, such as political militias, terrorist groups internationals, and criminal groups.
Unresolved regional tensions, the breakdown of the rule of law, the absence of or usurpation of state institutions, illicit economic gains, and resource scarcity exacerbated by climate change have become major causes of conflict.
Today, crime causes more deaths than armed conflicts. In 2017, there were almost half a million homicide victims, a figure that far exceeds the 89,000 victims caused by active armed conflicts and the 19,000 who died in terrorist attacks.
How to solve it?
Over the past decade, the international community has spent $233 billion on humanitarian response, peacekeeping, and refugee reception. Investing in conflict prevention is a profitable business.
According to the Secretary General of the United Nations, instruments such as the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund can be used, which has demonstrated its ability to help by supporting the transition processes towards peace and stability.
Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations. Peacekeeping will only be achieved through a committed and inclusive sense of national ownership that takes into account the needs of the most marginalized, including women, youth, minorities, and people with disabilities.
In a report on the subject, Guterres ensures that neither peace nor prosperity can be ensured in the long term if women do not fully participate in society, and stresses that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development represents the universal project of the United Nations to achieve a more peaceful and stable society.
These are just some of the biggest problems in the world, however, there are many more that affect millions of people every day. Although generating solutions is the work of international organizations and governments, it is also part of our social responsibility to contribute as much as possible to their resolution.
