Model United Nations, a name that itself emerges from the United Nations, aims to find solutions to the real-life problems that are fundamentally resolved by the organisation named, United Nations. United Nations, founded in the year 1945, is an international organization that has the autonomy to take action on issues confronting humanity in the 21st century. There are various organs and specialized agencies within the United Nations that work towards their area of concern. Few of those includes- United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Women, United Nations Security Council or United Nations Environment Programme. However, here surfaces a state of perplexity as to why there is a need for the Model United Nations when we have an existing organization that solves the global issues.
Certain real-life drawbacks and challenges require an attempt from the youth to understand them and strive to fathom those problems. Model United Nations is an extracurricular activity, yet an educational simulation, owing to which students and the young generation can learn and comprehend about diplomacy, international relations, public speaking and problem-solving skills. Besides, in addition to critical thinking, and leadership abilities, MUN also teaches speaking and writing skills. With these perquisites in hand, MUN is considered to be both curricular as well as an extracurricular activity. MUN aims at engaging students and keeping them updated with the recent occurrences, at a national level as well as global level. Participants in the Model United Nations are known to be “delegates” who take up the role of real diplomats and countries and seek to act under their respective portfolio’s policies and perspectives. With time, MUN has started re-inventing itself and broadened the simulated committees from United Nations based, to Historic, Fictional, National and others as well. The agenda concerning the committee reflects the ongoing real-world issues that are discussed by the United Nations. During the MUN conference, the basic process of how the committee flows, starts with research, formulating positions, lobbying, debating, and eventually, coming to a conclusion and solution.
IMPORTANCE OF MUN CONFERENCES
In the modern world, it’s a necessity to be aware of everything happening around us and thus, MUN plays a great role in the development of a person and prepares him mentally for the toughest situation one can face in his life. A MUN conference can teach a variety of things to an individual such as Debating, Diplomacy, Researching and making him aware of the current geopolitical situation around the globe. Another important quality that MUN helps to develop is that it helps to develop leadership skills in one individual and make them realise the importance of a leader and how a leader should behave. Apart from giving people a broad and global point of view, MUN also helps them to develop analytical skills as they are put in an environment where they need to use their creativity and analytical approach to solve the problem. One can say that MUN conferences are an ideal stage to challenge yourself and put your abilities to test. It is the life-time experience that will help you in future endeavours. These conferences develop a student’s skills in diplomacy and lobbying, two very important skills in today’s world. The students develop a sense of understanding towards foreign policies of nations across the globe and thus, increasing their knowledge.
ROLE OF RESEARCH AND PUBLIC SPEAKING IN MUN
In a MUN conference, confidence and Public speaking are key to success. One of the major goals of participating in such competitions is to improve one’s oratory abilities and to enhance our vocabulary. But in MUN one can get hold of Public speaking only when they have strong points and research which they can put in nice words and sentences. Due to the internet, research has become much easier however there is one basic rule that everyone needs to follow during their preparations of any MUN i.e to never use editable websites such as Wikipedia, Britannica and Quora because they are never considered as reliable sources for any information. For any set of committees, different websites are legal and reliable for instance if one is preparing for any UN committee as UNSC or UNHRC then any UN website or international newspapers as WSJ, New York Times, BBC are considered official. While researching a delegate should always try to touch on as unique points as possible which make them look better researched than others. Another popular way of researching is watching different videos of different news agencies and trying to extract as much information as possible. Apart from this, there is one source of research that is considered to be the best and that are “Books”’ which are considered to be the oldest existing source of anything. These are a few sources and methods of Researching which is the most important thing while participating in a MUN conference. But in the end to be good at MUN then one should have a perfect balance of good research and oratory skills. Good research and facts when combined with speaking skills make a winning combination. There are some basic things that one can do to improve speaking skills but the most important factor is self-belief and self-confidence which one should possess to give fluent and smart speeches.
IMPORTANCE OF ROP
Everything requires a flow, so does a MUN where students are representing diplomats of nations. This is the purpose of Rules of Procedure, also known as ROP, which is of high importance in a MUN. These Rules may vary from conference to conference but it is what defines the flow of the conference. The most common ROP has motions such as Moderated Caucus and Unmoderated Caucus apart from the Speaker’s List which provides an opportunity for the delegates to speak. Students might wonder what these heavy terms are but they are just different ways of discussion. Apart from providing the flow, this is what the knowledge of ROP is needed. The ROP brings research and other skills into the discussion, thus making students learn more while they debate. The ROP also brings in writing skills through paperwork into a MUN. If a delegate is well aware of the Rules of Procedure, he understands what and how to prepare for a MUN and possibly win it.
HOW IS MUN MORE THAN A COMPETITION
MUNs are always seen as an organization where an individual can grow and learn a variety of things to develop as an individual by preparing him/her for the toughest situation in life, but as we all can see that nowadays there is a growing trend of MUN becoming very competitive to the point that many people considered MUN-ing as synonyms to competition and that’s the real point because many delegates attend the conference with the sole intention of winning an award. Learning, maturing and understanding is not happening. Many times delegates oppose a particular resolution or an argument simply because it was created by their competitor. Besides this, Competitiveness has skewed the nature of conferences to a level that many a times winners are those who just project themselves to be extremely vocal or persuasive but essentially they might not be having better diplomacy or better views regarding a similar issue, many of the delegates describe MUN-ing as highly competitive and unrealistic debate platform but there is always a way to ensure that you are gaining the maximum benefits of a MUN. Often the participants are bewildered as to how they should prepare for a MUN and are stressed out considering that it requires vast learning and skills. However, Model United Nations is more than a competition, a platform that requires a delegate’s full dedication towards public speaking, foreign policy and diplomacy. It is merely an activity that enhances one’s knowledge in every area.