Current Affairs MCQs – Page 1 (Q1-10)

The UN Headquarters sits beside the East River in Manhattan, on land donated by John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1946. The United Nations itself was founded in 1945 after World War II, replacing the earlier League of Nations, and today has 193 member states. Geneva, Vienna and The Hague are common wrong answers because they also host major UN operations: Geneva is home to the UN’s European headquarters and the WHO, Vienna hosts the IAEA, and The Hague houses the International Court of Justice.

The United Nations was formally established on October 24, 1945, a date now celebrated annually as United Nations Day, after its charter was signed in San Francisco that June by 50 countries. It succeeded the League of Nations, which had failed to prevent World War II and was formally dissolved in 1946. 1944 is a tempting distractor because the Dumbarton Oaks Conference held that year in Washington drafted the initial proposals for the organization. The UN’s first Secretary-General, Trygve Lie of Norway, took office in 1946.

Fifty-one countries signed the United Nations Charter as founding members in 1945, including Poland, which added its signature later that year after missing the San Francisco conference due to political turmoil. The five permanent members of the Security Council, the US, UK, France, China and the Soviet Union, were given veto power from the outset. Smaller numbers like 48 are tempting distractors because that was roughly the size of the League of Nations at its peak. Membership has since grown to 193 states, with South Sudan the most recent addition in 2011.

The World Health Organization is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, alongside numerous other UN specialized agencies clustered in that city. It was established in 1948 as the UN’s directing authority on international public health, and its founding is commemorated every April 7 as World Health Day. Rome is a tempting distractor because it hosts the FAO and World Food Programme, sister UN bodies dealing with food and agriculture rather than health. WHO played a central global role during the COVID-19 pandemic and earlier led the successful eradication of smallpox in 1980.

The World Health Organization was formally established on April 7, 1948, a date now marked worldwide every year as World Health Day. It was created as a specialized agency of the newly formed United Nations to coordinate international responses to disease and public health crises. 1945 is a common distractor since that is when the UN itself, WHO’s parent body, was founded, three years before WHO came into being. WHO’s most celebrated achievement remains the global eradication of smallpox, declared complete in 1980 after a decades-long vaccination campaign.

The International Monetary Fund is headquartered in Washington D.C., sharing the city with its sister institution, the World Bank, which was created at the same 1944 conference. The IMF’s core mission is to promote global monetary cooperation, exchange-rate stability, and to lend to countries facing balance-of-payments crises, including Pakistan on several occasions. Geneva is a frequent wrong answer because it hosts the WTO and many other international economic and trade bodies. The IMF currently has 190 member countries and is funded through member quotas that also determine voting power.

The IMF was created at the Bretton Woods Conference, held in July 1944 at a resort in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, attended by representatives from 44 Allied nations. The same conference also established the World Bank, giving rise to the term Bretton Woods institutions for the pair. The Yalta Conference, held in February 1945 between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, is a tempting distractor because it dealt with the post-war political order rather than economic architecture. The Bretton Woods system also pegged currencies to the US dollar until it collapsed in 1971.

The World Bank is headquartered in Washington D.C., the same city as the International Monetary Fund, its sister institution born from the same 1944 conference. Its official mission is to reduce poverty by providing loans and grants to developing countries for infrastructure, education and health projects. Geneva is a frequent distractor because it hosts many UN and trade-related bodies, but not the Bank itself. The World Bank Group today comprises five institutions, including the International Development Association, which lends to the world’s poorest nations on concessional terms.

The World Bank was established in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire, the same meeting that created the International Monetary Fund. It began operations in 1946 and issued its first loan in 1947 to France for post-war reconstruction. 1947 is a plausible distractor because that is when the Bank’s lending activity actually started, even though the institution itself was founded three years earlier. Today the World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and technical assistance for developing countries worldwide.

The World Trade Organization is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, a city that hosts a dense cluster of UN and trade-related international bodies. The WTO administers global rules of trade between nations, aiming to ensure trade flows smoothly, predictably and freely. Brussels is a common wrong answer because it is the seat of the European Union’s main institutions, which also negotiate trade policy on behalf of EU members. The WTO currently has 164 member countries, with Pakistan among its founding members in 1995.