A lot has changed in the past 80 years.
The United Nations Security Council is one of the UN’s most important organs. It is charged with ensuring international peace and security, cooperating to solve international problems, and harmonising actions across nations.
The Security Council is the only UN organ with the power to make and enforce legally binding resolutions. It is composed of 15 member states: five permanent seats and 10 two-year rotating seats.
It was created in 1945 as part of the charter that established the United Nations. In the 80 years since, the world has dramatically changed, while the structure of the Security Council remains largely unchanged (one exception being that the number of rotating seats increased from 6 to 10 in 1965). So it’s worth assessing whether the Security Council’s structure is still fit for today’s world.
To do that, we explore the Security Council across three dynamics: who pays, who serves, and who decides. We look in particular at peacekeeping, a primary mechanism through which the Security Council enforces decisions.
Who pays
The Security Council is financed via the UN budget and specific contribution mechanisms. Most UN peacekeeping missions, for instance, are funded through a separate budget financed by mandatory assessed contributions. These follow the same contribution scale used for the UN regular budget, but are then adjusted to give least-developed countries a discount. That effectively redistributes a portion of their contributions to the five permanent members, who pay a premium.
The five permanent members are expected to pay an average of 61.7% for peacekeeping operations between 2025 and 2027. Higher-income countries account for nearly all expected contributions, while lower-income countries pay very little.
Who serves
The human burden of UN peacekeeping falls disproportionately on lower-income countries.
Of the average 67,709 UN peacekeepers globally between 2022 and 2025, nearly three-quarters came from low- and lower-middle-income countries. High-income countries supplied 10%.
A small number of countries provide the majority of UN peacekeepers. The top 15 countries—all from Africa and Asia—provided two-thirds of all peacekeepers between 2022 and 2025. All but three were lower-income countries. None were high income.
The Security Council’s five permanent members collectively supply a small share of UN peacekeepers.
Since its inception, the Security Council has engaged in over 70 peacekeeping missions. The vast majority have occurred in Africa and Asia Pacific States. Only two have taken place in the Western European & Other States region.
That reality has fueled calls for reform from those who believe that the regions most impacted by insecurity and conflict ought to have a greater say in the decisions impacting them.
Who decides
The Security Council has 10 two-year rotating seats allocated across five regional groups, alongside five permanent seats held by China, France, Russia, the UK, and US.
In addition to holding seats without term limits, permanent members have veto power, enabling them to block proposed Security Council action.
The Security Council’s membership is skewed toward the Global North. Western European and Other States account for just 15% of all UN member states, yet hold one-third of the Security Council’s seats, including 60% of its permanent seats.
A changed world
The world today looks very different from the world that existed in 1945.
For starters, the number of countries has nearly quadrupled, driven by decolonisation movements in the Global South. The UN has 193 members today, compared with 51 at its inception. That expansion is most notable in Africa and Asia, whose UN membership grew more than 13-fold and nearly 7-fold.
The global economy has been transformed over the past 80 years, with significant gains made in the Asia-Pacific region. That trend will continue, with Africa in particular gaining significant economic clout between now and the end of the century.
Proponents of Security Council reform also point out that seat apportionment does not reflect the significant demographic shifts that have occurred over the past 80 years, and that will occur in the coming decades.
As a result, certain regions, namely Western European and Other States, are overrepresented based on population size, while the Asia-Pacific region is vastly underrepresented.
Asia-Pacific accounts for 57% of the world’s population, yet holds just one-fifth of the Security Council’s seats (including one permanent seat). Africa accounts for nearly one-fifth of the world’s population, but has no permanent seat. The Western European and Other States group accounts for 12% of the global population, but holds one-third of the seats and a majority of the permanent seats.
If Security Council representation were measured as seats relative to population, a person living in France has 27 times as much representation as someone living in the Asia-Pacific region, and 8.9 times as much as someone living in an African country. A UK resident has 8.6 times as much representation as an African.
In the absence of Security Council reform, the representation gap will widen as the result of demographic shifts already underway. That would disproportionately affect Africa, whose share of the global population will expand from 19% today to nearly 38% by century’s end.
Yet the Security Council’s architecture has not evolved. It largely reflects the balance of power that existed at the end of World War II.
Calls for reform
A growing chorus of voices are demanding reform. African leaders—and UN Secretary-General António Guterres—have called for Africa to receive two permanent seats and two additional non-permanent seats. They contend that this would better reflect Africa’s demographic might, its contribution to peacekeeping, and the fact that African countries are disproportionately affected by Security Council decisions.
The L.69 Group of developing countries has proposed giving both Africa and Asia two new permanent seats and allocating Latin America and the Caribbean region and the Western European and other States region one new permanent seat each. In addition, it advocates for the creation of several new non-permanent seats, including one for Small Island Developing States.
For the Security Council’s decisions to have relevance and credibility in a changed world, it will need to consider better aligning its representation with modern realities.