Established in 1920 after the First World War, the League of Nations was the first permanent international organisation intended to maintain collective security and resolve disputes between states. It administered territories under the mandate system, ran technical bodies on health, transit and communications, and convened the first international conferences on questions such as housing and town planning. Weakened by the absence of the United States and its failure to prevent aggression in the 1930s, it collapsed in influence and was formally dissolved in 1946. Its technical agencies and secretariat model were inherited by the United Nations.
It created the template of the permanent inter-governmental organisation and the first international forums on housing and planning, foreshadowing the UN system that now frames the global urban agenda.
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