Thank you all so much for an AMAZING VAMUN experience! I could not have asked for any more enthusiastic & awesome Vice Chair, Crisis Director & Staff! You guys made the crises & the whole process so much more fun!

Thanks to all the delegates of the UNMDG Summit 2015! I was blown away by the depth of debate that went on in our committee and very amused with your creativity and humor. I hope  you all had as much fun as I did!

Many of you are seniors, so good luck with your future endeavors (and I hope to see some of you at UVA)! To the non-seniors, I hope to see you again at VAMUN

I have a word from your Crisis Director, Paul Moniuszko:

Delegates,

Since this committee is based in the future, here are some changes that have occurred in the timespan between now and 2015. Be sure to keep these in mind when preparing your country’s positions and arguments for committee, and structure any ideas you’ve drawn up in your position paper around them for debate.

In regards to the EU, the Euro itself has depreciated significantly over the past 5 years. The causes of this are murky still, but membership in the EU has become much tenser over the past few years due to the weakening economy in comparison to the Yen and American Dollar. This has had repercussions across the board, ranging from the funding of programs such as Euro-Corps and the joint agrarian policy pursued over the years by EU member states. Additionally, nations such as the Ukraine, Russian Federation, and Iceland have submitted applications to become member states of the EU.

In Africa and the Middle East, conflicts in Sudan, Central Africa, and Israel are still occurring. These conflicts have severely affected the number of young people attending and receiving schooling, thus requiring the committee’s attention as how to solve this problem. In conjunction with this, instability on the region has caused OPEC to place a price ceiling on oil, lowering prices as they were in 2010 by $10-50 depending on the year and economic conditions. Additionally, the scarcity of oil has increased, thus leading OPEC and nations such as the Russian Federation to be much more demanding in the oil market.

Finally, the mean global temperature has increased by nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit across the globe, with areas such as India and South East Asia having increases as much as 2 degrees in some years. This trend over the past 15 years can no longer be ignored, and the governments of many of your nations have demanded solutions to this oncoming crisis. Over the past five years, natural disasters have not only become more prevalent, but become much more powerful in nature. To provide an example, a tsunami exponentially stronger formed in the Indian Ocean during the Winter of 2013, but fortunately missed land. If it had made a landfall, the effects would have been nothing short of catastrophic.

In short, the world’s problem as we knew them in 2010 have only gotten worse, and the time has come for this committee to provide solutions to these essential problems. Creativity, cooperation, and sustainable solutions are of the utmost importance for resolutions this committee creates.

Hope you are looking forward to this weekend, get ready for some fun!

-Paul Moniuszko-

Please keep these news updates in mind as you prepare your opening statements (limit them to 2 minutes). A brief summary of your position paper should suffice as your opening statement, so do not panic, this is not extra work.

Can’t wait to meet all of you!

Just as a heads up (and in case you didn’t catch my hints from the background guide), this committee will have crises. If it did not, what would be the point of it being set in the future? My staff & I are still in the process of figuring out how we should update the committee on “the news of the future”, giving you guys some background information before the 1st session. Perhaps we will post something on here. . .so KEEP AN EYE OUT for that!

THREE MORE DAYS UNTIL VAMUNXXX!

Continuing with the Guardian.Co.Uk articles, one author posted an easy-to-follow guide to help readers pick out the key points of the debate:

• While there has been developments/progress on the MDGs, progress is unequal and usually leaves out the poorest.
• Policy makers are trying to take the politics out of the MDGs & not letting them get in the way of progress (which in the Coverage of the 3rd day, we will see that Amnesty International was not too happy about, as they wanted to bring Human Rights issues to the forefront)
• And he had links to 6 important documents, but the Unicef Document & the MDG Report card are the only ones of importance for the purpose of this committee (There is also this article that summaries what has been done for each goal)

Highlights from Day 3 :

• Ban ki-Moon launched a strategy on women’s and children’s health, with $40 billion worth of commitments from nations and private aid groups around the world
• Oxfam expressed skepticism about this project and how well the money would be allocated
• There was also some skepticism about Hilary Clinton’s initiative on clean stoves
• He also chaired a forum that brought together world leaders and captains of industry to see how the private sector can help in realising the MDGs (relates to MDG #8)
• There is also a video he posted about MDG #8 made by African children, going around asking various leaders what they think African needs in order to develop
• In general, NGOs reacted negatively to the summit (Oxfam, Amnesty International, WaterAid etc.)
• At the 7:41PM mark, the author posted an excerpt from a Reuters article about water sanitation–“The lack of clean drinking water and sanitation in the world’s poorest nations threatens UN goals to cut poverty and disease, and raises the risk of conflict, leaders and aid groups said on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, we did not see much discussion on the topics that we will be covering in our committee throughout the summit (did anyone else notice that there was a greater focus on improving the lives of women?) However, I do appreciate the contrasting view points presented in these updates–between developed nations, developing nations and NGOs, as we can especially see in this last day’s coverage.

Here is a post-summit article about how in the aftermath of the summit, world leaders will need to adhere to their pledges in order to further progress on the MDGs. It has some important data (like from the IMF) about the amount of aid given by countries, how pledges and the poorest areas have been affected by the financial crisis and so forth.

That was a lot of information to digest. Take a few days to read through the articles/documents. . .and now for your general entertainment, here’s a slide show from the Summit: Slideshow

One more month until VAMUN!

Also, on the website is a great resource that has a list of the reports relating to the MDGs, some of which I have shared with you & some I haven’t.

Day One (Highlights):

The President of the World Bank spoke, gave statistics and proposed “joined-up” thinking, definitely trying to push MDG #8, Global Partnership. Much of the talk at the summit will revolve around “how to get the best bang for the development buck.”

Later, the Overseas Development Institute gave a presentation on their country-by-country MDG report card.

The official opening remarks were not made until 3:30PM, by none other than Ban-ki Moon. He stressed urgency and cooperation, but remained optimistic and said that these goals are achievable.

There are various organizations/projects mentioned in this update, so please take a look at those, as I’m sure it will come in handy for writing resolutions.

Day Two:

Hilary Clinton revealed a $50million plan for clean cooking stoves.

There was a focus on maternal mortality (a topic we will not cover in our debate, but important nonetheless).

Around 2:30PM, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, spoke and  blamed “the countless suffering of humanity” on liberal capitalism. (Interpreters indicate that they were reading from pre-written text and not directly translating from what he said, which this reporter noted as “practically incomprehensible.”) As much as this summit is supposed to be about global partnership, politics cannot be avoided. An hour later, Mugabe the president of Zimbabwe also made jabs at countries that have inflicted economic sanctions on his country. Are actions such as these detrimental to the full achievement of these goals?

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany emphasizes that “good governance” is important as aid itself–another important point that should be kept in mind for the purpose of our debate.

To be continued. . . .

Here’s some news that I’ve come across recently:

1. New method to finance development

2. MDG video, to be played at Times Square

3. And my favorite person, Ted Turner, also made a video

Only a few more days until the Summit & 2 months until VAMUN!

—-

In other news, Hilary Clinton gave a speech at Johns Hopkins University about the Obama administration’s Global Health Initiative. A graduate student asked her about the MDGs (specifically goals 4,5,6) and what kind of outcomes she hopes to see come out of the September summit. Although we won’t be discussing these goals, it won’t hurt to read her response (in fact, there’s a video at the bottom where you can WATCH her speech), since she also talks about the MDGs in general (about accountability and figuring how we’ve all fallen short). I’m looking forward to the Summit!

DevInfo is also very interesting, though kind of difficult to use. If you have time, fiddle around with it & it should yield some pretty interesting results!