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To develop The UN project I seek information at UN websites. The UN keeps statistics on 61 different topics that collectively give a picture of the “state of the world”. You can see them all here.
I have selected seven of them for this project: Form of government / Population / Access to clean water / Freedom of the press / Literacy rate / Pregnancy-related mortality / CO2 emissions – tons per capita.
Denmark will be a basis for comparison.
The colors behind the heads of state will change according to the countries’ overall form of government. Green = Democracy. Pink = Kleptocracy/Autocracy. Grey = Theocracy/Non-members = White
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Next year – in 2025 – it will be 80 years since The United Nations (UN) was founded to create a peaceful future.
Behind them, the world wars and the Holocaust were fresh in the minds of heads of state.
Today, however, it can still feel like everything is going to hell: Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Hamas, unbridled overspending, natural disasters …
And today, as then, our fate lies in the hands of the 193 heads of state that make up the United Nations.
But who are they?
Would I recognize them on the street down by the grocery store?
I doubt it.
So while I’m still waiting for world peace … from my little vantage point on the third floor of a Copenhagen condominium … I have decided to portray all 193+ heads of state/government and thus – at least virtually – expand my horizon.
By the way: In June 2024, Denmark was elected for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the period of 2025-2026. Will it matter?
The journey begins with the face of UN-secretary general António Guterres. From there I’ll move on “portraying” the least populated nation onwards to the most populated nation.
