Good morning, Quartz readers!
The world’s biggest diplomatic festival, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), is about to kick off in earnest. But with high-profile absentees that include Angela Merkel, Xi Jinping, and Justin Trudeau, and governments raising doubts about the UN’s efficacy, this is also a good time to entertain a big question: Does the world even need the UN?
A systemic power imbalance gives permanent members of the UN Security Council—the US, UK, China, Russia, and France—and large donors (notably the US, which contributes about a quarter of the UN’s budget) an upper hand in the organization. This supports the image of the UN as a bureaucratic institution, ill-suited to meet the needs of countries whose priorities might not align with those of its key members. White House threats to cut UN funding add to the sense of doom.
But these limitations aren’t new to the UN—more important, they haven’t kept the organization from doing its job. Many UN agencies and programs still manage to accomplish the unglamorous work of promoting and coordinating international development, which can be credited with dramatically improving the lives of millions around the world. The UN has helped reduce extreme poverty, child mortality, and maternal mortality, and guarantee access to at least primary education for most of the world.
Though the UN is not capable of acting as the world’s policeman, it does do the vital work of collecting reliable information, conducting investigations, and demanding accountability, raising international scrutiny on violations even when it can’t address them directly. The world’s powers need that scrutiny, though before it loses credibility, the organization must do a better job of policing itself.
Even the threats of funding withdrawal have a silver lining. Losing US financial support would limit the UN’s activities, but could also bolster its credibility in the rest of the world. It might actually be an opportunity to reform the organization so that it represents member states more democratically, keeping them accountable, regardless of their wealth—as it was always meant to do. —Annalisa Merelli
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African standouts. Quartz Africa’s 2018 Africa Innovators list includes a mosquito-tracking scientist, a contemporary art fair organizer, a choreographer, fintech pioneers, and a theoretical physicist. The annual list is a worthy reminder of the incredible work being done on the continent, and the diversity of people, industries, and narratives deserving of our attention.
A simple redesign that’s saving pedestrians’ lives. On the streets of New York, rubber bumpers strategically placed at intersections are slowing drivers down and forcing them to make wider turns, which gives them better visibility of crosswalks. With stats, video, and illustrations, Karen Hao and Amanda Shendruk explain how this subtle but important urban tweak works.
Sparking joy for a living. Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo is so famous that “it’s virtually impossible to get Kondo to weed through your closets and emotional baggage herself these days,” writes Anne Quito for Quartzy. To bring the tidy to the people, 200 dedicated fans have become KonMari Certified Consultants.
A better way to ask for a raise. JPMorgan executive Kelly Coffey has some great tips for your next salary negotiation. What’s brilliant about her approach, Quartz At Work’s Lila MacLellan concludes, is that it communicates your ambition without making you sound entitled. It sets up the expectation that some deal will be struck, and we just need to find out what it is.
On fleek, amirite? African-American English is lit. It’s also the main source of lexical innovation on American Twitter, according to a new study from the University of Birmingham. Nikhil Sonnad looks at linguists’ analysis of nearly 1 billion tweets, which exposed common regional patterns of creativity.
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The backbone of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. With 60-plus subsidiaries and 120,000 employees, state-owned China Communications Construction Co. has a portfolio that includes 700 projects—many of dubious merit—in over 100 countries. For Bloomberg Businessweek, Sheridan Prasso digs deep into the sprawling entity, a mashup of engineering, dredging, and construction companies that’s been accused of corruption by national governments, environmentalists, and the World Bank.
Who is volunteerism for? It’s now hugely popular for those living in wealthy countries to visit poorer ones—often specifically to offer help, playing with orphaned children or building community structures. But volunteerism has become a for-profit activity, Tina Rosenburg reports for the Guardian, and often does local communities more harm than good.
The problem with fat-shaming. Since 1980, the obesity rate has doubled in 73 countries and increased in 113 others—and gone down in none. For the Huffington Post’s Highline, Michael Hobbes writes on the tendency to obsess about body weight and overlook the real problem: what, not how much, we’re eating.
Computers’ Achilles’ heel. Humans can understand when a scene is confusing and thus go back for a second glance. This basic skill (the double take) is lacking with artificial intelligence, writes Kevin Hartnett for Quanta magazine. That’s problematic, given the rise of automated surveillance and autonomous driving.
About that night. For the Washington Post, Elizabeth Bruenig dissects the story of a rape accusation that shook her hometown in 2006, leaving the victim ostracized and traumatized. Twelve years later, an allegation that shares many characteristics of the event that Bruenig describes has become a matter of national importance.
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, double-taking robots, and Japanese tidiness consultants to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day, or download our apps for iPhone and Android. Today’s Weekend Brief was edited by Kira Bindrim and Steve Mollman.