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Show I v: - ' i j :'j - ) r ' J -isi& ... OPENING MORNING deer hunter battled snow and fog in pursuit of a buck. This area, near The UN -- improving the quality of life October 24 is United Nations Day. ,-sss the United States and the world, rjle will participate in seminars and tjams, in festivals and parades, to i rnemorate the founding of the j iiedNations in 1945. But other people I .question the cause for celebration, i has the United Nations done for :e' ihey will ask. What has the U.N. mlor my country? , Hie United States is a prosperous jitlry. We have fresh water and we ft more food than we need. We have ok and hospitals. We have the :stadvanced technology in the world, si Americans live long and com-Vible com-Vible lives. Does it matter to us that 1 1'nited Nations , is working in jladesh" to provide1 clean water? In ilia to shelter the homeless? In puchea to feed the hungry. I real work of the United Nations is : f:iminate war. But war cannot be - rated until the causes of war are ! T.nated: the poverty, the disease, literacy of half the people of the ; 'H doom us to more war unless we :A those causes at their roots. The U.N. Day '81 is "Improving Quality of Life," because that is the ' rk of the United Nations. than 80 percent of the resources 'kWf. are channelled through V!: specialized agencies and grains into humanitarian, social, !l economic projects around the 'i to raise living standards. So j; the United States does in esh and Somalia and Karris' Karri-s' and on every continent matters fral to the United States. United States also benefits from k Med Nations in direct ways. At i t . Conference on New and 'fable Sources of Energy, ,;Ilca"s exchanged knowledge rgy sources with experts from (r the world. We shared in-"m in-"m about geothermal energy, ' fini, wind energy, biomass (; i, power from the ocean tides J ,0' The U.S. benefits from the w states Environment Program Brush Creek, proved more scenic than productive produc-tive for hunter, Lynn Sessions. which has developed a plan to control pollution in the Caribbean Sea and to improve and protect the environment of the surrounding nations. We will benefit, too, from the work of the U.N. Fund for Drug Abuse Control which is encouraging farmers in Southeast Asia to plant fruits and vegetables in their field instead of the opium poppy which would end up on our city streets as heroin. We also benefit financially. Through eradication of smallpox by the World Health Organization, a U.N. agency, the U.S., estimates that is saves $200 million a year (that's $50 million more than our assessed annual contribution to the U.N.'s regular budget). The United States" is the single largest contributor to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) which , has more than 8,000 projects in which 153 countries and territories. We provide UNDP about $115 million annually. an-nually. In recent years, however, UNDP has actually spent nearly $130 million a year OH cquijjincm aim tAi w salaries in this country. Hence through its participation in UNDP, the United States actually has a net gain of some $15 million a year. The United Nations will be 36 years old on Oct. 24. More than half the people now living have never known a world without the United Nations. The world has changed since the U.N. was founded in 1945. Problems such as energy shortages which may once have had national boundaries are now international in-ternational in scope. The world has become interdependent, and the United States cannot live as an island of prosperity in a sea of poverty if it wants to live in peace. The United Nations is working to close the gap between abundance and poverty, to raise living standards around the world. And the United States benefits because until we have succeeded in "Improving the Quality of Life" for everyone, peace will not be J possible for anyone. 1 |
