Our Global Neighborhood‪.‬

The United Nations in its Second Half-Century is the product of a study organized, convened, and supported by the Ford Foundation in 1993 at request of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. That study, conducted by the Independent Working Group on the Future of the United Nations, which was cochaired by former Prime Minister of Pakistan Moeen Qureshi and former President of the Federal Republic of Germany Richard von Weizsacher, has as its overriding goal the shaping of a world community living in peace under the laws of justice. The goal is seen as a method to overcome the challenges to the existing international system. The United Nations in its Second Half-Century makes this conclusion clear in its review of contemporary socioeconomic and political conditions. In the socioeconomic area, the report observes that human living conditions have improved over the past 50 years because of global creativity and invention, and that a majority of people today enjoy a material standard of living superior to that of past generations. On the other hand, the increased world economic output has also highlighted the sharp disparities in the wealth of countries and the social groups within them. Huge capital flows among financial centers daily bypass people caught in poverty. Additionally, present environmental trends, from increasing urban populations to the depletion of natural resources, when combined with increasing unemployment, crime, persistent poverty, and the volatility of the international financial system, threaten human well-being around the world.