The United Nations has given peace, justice and strong institutions the month of April, apparently deciding that the collapse of civilisation needs the same brisk attention normally reserved for a council fun run and a box of biscuits.
The campaign spotlights Sustainable Development Goal 16. It asks the world for peaceful societies, access to justice and institutions sturdy enough to remain upright while a diplomat reads a statement beginning, “We are deeply concerned.” The fact that this requires a calendar slot has not reduced anyone’s confidence.
Peace on a rolling monthly basis
“We have given peace a logo, a colour and a month,” said Ambassador Cedric Consensus Finch, chair of the Committee for Decisive Further Discussion. “If that fails, we can escalate to a working lunch.”
Officials will also encourage justice to become more accessible. Applicants must locate the correct website, form and queue before they can ask why justice is inaccessible. This is called a process, because “obstacle course run by people with lanyards” did not survive legal review.
Strong institutions, sturdier spreadsheets
Strong institutions will face a simple test. Can they survive an audit without appointing a commission to explain why the audit feels negative? One department has already prepared seventy four pages on resilience. Its printer has shown the strongest survival instinct.
Every success will appear in a traffic light dashboard. Green means progress. Amber means someone has booked a consultation. Red means the spreadsheet has stopped pretending there is a distinction. Delegates praised the system because it lets despair travel in a sensible official format.
Nobody asked what happens when April ends. Officials said the goal will continue through coordinated action, a phrase which usually means a different committee has found the password.
At April’s end, officials will log peace as “ongoing”, justice as “complex” and institutions as “requiring further institutionalising”. Then May will receive a clean calendar and a new crisis, as though no one has thought to check the cupboard marked April.
Read the real story: the UN Goal of the Month page. If it works, the UN may tackle gravity in June, then announce that falling remains a matter of concern.
