Everyone bags the United Nations. It’s the easy thing to do, to say that this “league of nations” – 193 in total – is so drowning in bureaucracy, corruption and limp-wristed inaction as to be the punching bag for anyone who’s vaguely politically minded.

The smug harrumphing isn’t usually especially deep, nor is it entirely incorrect. The UN is undoubtedly a bureaucratic nightmare, it would be impossible for there not to be some level of corruption and as for inaction, well, that can be a highly subjective thing but there’s bound to be some of that too.

But what’s the alternative? Every man and country for himself? To just ditch international diplomacy? To be so certain that differing countries can’t be part of any collective that there’s no point trying? You can see why people who are disinclined to subscribe to the existence of climate change are also highly inclined to be broadly anti the UN. If you can’t conceive of such a thing as collective responsibility – whether social, political or environmental – how could you conceive man-made climate change to be real?

None of which is to say people shouldn’t be critical of the UN. In order to make it as valuable to the world as this planet desperately needs it to be, it has to improve. But there’s no point demanding something improve if we don’t have an accurate gauge on how it’s really performing and what good it may already be achieving.

Case in point? According to the United Nations Foundation (who published a list of handy UN fun facts last year), it’s things like the UN supplying vaccines to 45 percent of all the world’s children. Things like the UN currently having almost 120,000 peacekeepers working in 15 operations on four continents.

Things like the UN’s World Food Programme assisting 80 million people in about 80 different countries. Things like supporting general elections in over 60 countries every year. Things like helping more than one million women worldwide who have health complications during pregnancy.

As I’ve mentioned many times on talkback radio over the years, I’ve been fortunate to see firsthand the positive difference of the United Nations Development Programme that Helen Clark used to head. Whether in small villages in Fiji or in a once poverty-stricken highland area of central Myanmar, the UNDP has had immense, quantifiable results in uplifting some of the most vulnerable people.

There’s another fun fact – one I’m sure you’ve heard but one I hope never ceases to be true – that since the formation of the UN out of the ashes of WW2 and the League Of Nations – there hasn’t been another world war. We’re up to 73 years and counting and may that count never stop.

Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB’s Weekend Collective and is filling in for Andrew Dickens this week from 12pm-4pm.