Founded at the end of World War II to prevent another major disaster of that kind, the UN has now vastly expanded its mandate beyond peacekeeping, as important as that is. For instance, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), adopted at the UN Millennium summit five years ago, proclaimed the international community’s resolve to reduce poverty in all of its manifestations and set concrete goals to be achieved by 2015.
联合国成立于二战结束，其初衷是防止另一场类似二战的大灾祸。目前，联合国的职责已大大超出维护和平的范畴，而这些新职责与维和同样重要。例如，五年前在联合国千年首脑会议上通过的千年发展目标宣告了国际社会决心降低各种形式的贫困，并确定了在2015年前所要实现的明确目标。