UNITED NATIONS, Nov16: A top UN official warned on Wednesday that the United Nations would diminish and erode over the next two decades, just as the League of Nations had collapsed due to the “tyranny of one”.

The world body “needs to stay course” on the far reaching reforms put in place, he said.

“Consensus was an important word, but it had killed the last intergovernmental body (League of the Nations) and will kill this one if the Security Council failed to act decisively, as in the case of Darfur,” said the outgoing Undersecretary General of Management Christopher Burnham at a press conference.

Mr Burnham said that the oil-for-food scandal had been the driving force behind the reform agenda to bring the United Nations into the 21st Century. It had led to the knowledge that internal controls began with internal ethics and that an organisation’s chief operational officer was only as good as the team. The outgoing secretary-general had laid down the structure for a strengthened team, he added.

Mr Burnham said the road towards creating a 21st Century organisation rested on a number of concrete institutional mechanisms already in place.