MUN-ers help!

[dandoon96]

Joining an MUN very soon!

Any idea on how to approach any of the following questions?

1) Strengthening the coordination of humanitarian and disaster relief assistance of the United Nations

2) The impact of migration on development

3) Preserving multiculturalism and cultural diversity through the revision of the education system

Please help!!

[alefal]

I don't know if it is too late, but here's my way of doing research before MUN.

First, you'd do as much research as possible. Read the background guides (if available) and any general source you could find on the topics. A good idea is to find UN's own pages discussing that very topic.

After you feel you have read enough to have a general overview of the topic, I would start research the country or NGO you are going to represent. Try to find not only information about your country's opinion on the topics, but also other, seemingly less important facts. How stupid would you seem if you can't tell the GA how many inhabitants your nation has? Also, no matter what topic, try to find out who your allies is. Does USA have a military base in your nation? Do you have close trading ties with Uzbekistan?

For the first topic, geography of your country, history, demography, statistics concerning hunger (especially important on this one is to compare numbers from different years - has there been any progress?) and maybe even geology/seismology in some cases may be interesting to look at. For instance, do you think Japan's opinion on topic 1 is affected by the risk of earthquakes? Is there a possibility that the high seismological activity in the area may affect their needs in term of disaster relief assistance (maybe they would want to establish a sub-organisation in the UN dealing specifically with disaster relief after earthquakes (given that it does not exist), or urge nations to improve the research on seismology and the predictability of seismological activity)? Or, in another case, does the type of government affect your country's will to give and receive such aid? Think of North Korea's Juche ideology against, for instance, Norway's openness.

After you feel finished with the general facts, I would move on to look on your nation's actual policies on the different topics. You will most likely find UN resolutions relating to your topics on UN's own pages - if you do, you'll likely also find the voting results. You will find most of the documents you'll need on this page: http://www.un.org/en...nts/index.shtml

If you can't seem to find any specific policies for your country, do more reading on the general facts, read articles related to the topic and your country, etc. This will definitely help you take the most realistic guesses.

If your research tells you that your country does not have any strong opinions, it would be wise to research these areas of the topic more thoroughly.

Write short position papers on all your topics. At least I find them very useful during debate, as you will instantly know what your policies are instead of trying to remember the research you did a week ago. Also, bringing key documents could be wise.

If you do have more time to waste, read more on the topics. You never know how the debate is going to turn out!

Edited 4 September 2012 - minor grammatical changes.

Edited September 4, 2012 by alefal