International Organisations and Headquarters: Full List

The correct answer is B, Paris. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization was founded in 1946 and works from Paris in France. It is the agency behind the World Heritage List, the international literacy programmes and the biosphere reserve network, and it also keeps the list of intangible cultural heritage on which Indian entries such as Kutiyattam and the Kumbh Mela appear.

Option A, New York, is the headquarters of the United Nations itself and of UNICEF and UNDP, not of UNESCO. Option C, Geneva, holds the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization and the World Trade Organization, so it is the commonest trap in this question. Option D, Rome, is the city of the three food bodies, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The correct answer is D, Philippines. The Asian Development Bank was founded in 1966 to lend for development in Asia and the Pacific and has its headquarters at Manila, the capital of the Philippines. India is a founding member and among its largest borrowers. Japan and the United States hold the largest shares in the bank, and its president has by convention always been Japanese.

Option A, Malaysia, hosts no such bank at Kuala Lumpur, although the city holds regional offices of several bodies. Option B, Indonesia, is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat at Jakarta, which is a different institution. Option C, Thailand, hosts the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific at Bangkok, and the Bangkok Declaration of 1967 created ASEAN, so it is a plausible but wrong choice here.

The correct answer is C, International Monetary Fund. The conference held in 1944 at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire in the United States set up two twin institutions, the International Monetary Fund to keep exchange rates orderly and help countries facing balance of payments difficulty, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to lend for reconstruction and development. Both have their headquarters at Washington DC.

Option A is wrong because the United Nations was created by its own Charter, signed at San Francisco in 1945. Option B, UNESCO, was founded in 1946 as a specialised agency for education, science and culture. Option D, the International Labour Organization, is older than all of them, set up in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles. Only the IMF and the World Bank are called the Bretton Woods institutions.

The correct answer is D, 2 only. The United Nations works in six official languages, Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. Of the four names in the list, Arabic, Spanish and Chinese are all official, so only German, the second item, is not. Arabic was the last of the six to be added, in 1973. Of the six, English and French are also the working languages of the Secretariat.

Option A is wrong because Arabic is official, having been added in 1973. Option B is wrong for the same reason and because Chinese was official from the beginning as one of the languages of the founding members. Option C again wrongly counts Arabic as not official. Only option D keeps German alone, and German is not a UN language although Germany is a large contributor to the UN budget.

The correct answer is B, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, known by its short form IUPAC. It is the world authority on chemical nomenclature, so it approves the names and symbols of newly discovered elements, standardises the naming of compounds and maintains the recommended values of atomic weights. Elements such as oganesson and nihonium received their names through this body after the discovery claims were verified.

Option A, UNESCO, promotes education, science and culture but does not name elements. Option C, the International Science Council, brings scientific bodies together for policy and cooperation and has no naming power. Option D, the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, works on the study of the earth, its shape, gravity and interior, and so is unrelated to chemical names, although its own abbreviation looks similar.

The correct answer is A, Heritage Foundation. The Index of Economic Freedom has been published by this research organisation based at Washington DC since 1995, and it scores countries on matters such as property rights, tax burden, government spending, trade freedom and business regulation. Questions on this topic usually pair an index with the body that publishes it, so this name is worth memorising along with the index it produces.

Option B, the Fraser Institute of Canada, publishes a similarly named report called Economic Freedom of the World, which makes it the closest trap in the set. Option C, the International Monetary Fund, publishes the World Economic Outlook and the Global Financial Stability Report. Option D, the World Bank, brings out the World Development Report and earlier the Ease of Doing Business rankings, but not this index.

The correct answer is B, Geneva. The World Health Organization works from Geneva in Switzerland. Its constitution came into force on 7 April 1948, which is why that date is observed every year as World Health Day, and its governing body, the World Health Assembly, meets in Geneva each May. The organisation declares public health emergencies of international concern and maintains the international classification of diseases.

Option A, Vienna, holds the International Atomic Energy Agency, UNIDO and OPEC. Option C, Nairobi in Kenya, holds the United Nations Environment Programme, the only major UN headquarters in Africa. Option D, Montreal in Canada, holds the International Civil Aviation Organization and the World Anti-Doping Agency. Geneva is the city to remember here, as it also holds the ILO, WTO, WIPO, WMO and UNHCR.

The correct answer is A, 1919. The International Labour Organization was created in 1919 by Part Thirteen of the Treaty of Versailles, at the end of the First World War, as part of the League of Nations system. It is therefore older than the United Nations and became the first specialised agency associated with it in 1946. India is a founding member. The body is unusual in having a tripartite structure in which governments, employers and workers are all represented, and it received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969.

Option B, 1945, is the year the United Nations and the FAO came into being. Option C, 1948, is the year the World Health Organization began work and the year GATT came into force. Option D, 1957, is the founding year of the International Atomic Energy Agency at Vienna, so each wrong option is a genuine founding year of another body.

The correct answer is B, Rome. The Food and Agriculture Organization was founded in 1945 and works from Rome in Italy. It leads international work on food production, nutrition and rural development, publishes the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, and observes World Food Day on 16 October, the date of its founding. Rome also holds the World Food Programme, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Option A, Paris, is the seat of UNESCO, the OECD and the Financial Action Task Force. Option C, Bern in Switzerland, holds the Universal Postal Union, one of the oldest international bodies. Option D, Brussels, is the headquarters of NATO and of the main institutions of the European Union. Rome is the food city and that link is enough to answer the question.

The correct answer is B, Vienna. The International Atomic Energy Agency was set up in 1957 and works from Vienna in Austria. It promotes the peaceful use of nuclear energy and applies safeguards and inspections to see that nuclear material is not diverted to weapons, work for which it and its then head shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. India is a member and several of its civil nuclear plants are under agency safeguards. Vienna also holds UNIDO and the secretariat of OPEC.

Option A, The Hague, holds the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Option C, Geneva, holds the WHO, ILO and WTO. Option D, Stockholm, is the city of the Nobel Foundation and of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, not of the atomic energy agency.

The correct answer is C, Kathmandu. SAARC was founded by the declaration signed at Dhaka in December 1985 by seven countries, and Afghanistan joined later as the eighth member. Its permanent secretariat, however, was opened at Kathmandu in Nepal in 1987 and works there under a Secretary-General drawn in turn from the member states. The distinction between the city of founding and the city of the secretariat is exactly what papers test.

Option A, Dhaka, is where the charter was signed, which makes it the favourite wrong answer, and it is also the seat of the BIMSTEC secretariat. Option B, Colombo, hosts no SAARC secretariat, although it holds some regional centres. Option D, New Delhi, is the home of the South Asian University, set up under a SAARC agreement, but not of the secretariat.

The correct answer is B, France. The International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, was founded at Vienna in 1923 and moved its headquarters to Lyon in France in 1989, where its general secretariat works today. It helps police forces of member countries exchange information, issues notices such as the red notice for wanted persons, and runs databases on stolen documents and vehicles. In India the Central Bureau of Investigation acts as the national central bureau for Interpol.

Option A, Austria, is where the body was founded, which makes it the trap, and Vienna still holds the IAEA and OPEC. Option C, Switzerland, holds many international bodies at Geneva and Basel but not Interpol. Option D, Belgium, is the seat of NATO and the European Union at Brussels, and also of Europol's partner institutions, but Europol itself is at The Hague.