Bdbusinessdaily.com – The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly opened under a cloud of institutional doubt. On 8 September, as world leaders gathered in New York for what is traditionally the most diplomatic week of the year, the incoming president of the Assembly made clear that his tenure would be defined not by ceremony but by confrontation with the body’s deepest structural weaknesses. Khalilur Rahman, a veteran Bangladeshi diplomat who stepped down from his post as foreign minister to assume the role, framed his mandate in blunt terms: the organisation must be rebuilt to match a world that has outgrown the architecture of 1945.

Addressing reporters outside the General Assembly hall at UN headquarters, Rahman did not soften his diagnosis. He described a global environment in which member states have grown sceptical of the institution’s capacity to deliver tangible outcomes, and he positioned his presidency as a corrective…