Welcome to the United Nations Guide to Getting Started with Model United Nations. Here you will find advice and resources for both Organizers and Delegates to guide the beginning of your MUN journey.
I. FOR ORGANIZERS
Establishing a team
When organizing a Model United Nations (MUN) simulation, it is important to have a competent and reliable team. Look for motivated students / peers who have experience or interest in communications, geopolitics, and negotiations. These skills will complement each other when you are promoting your simulation and coming up with themes and agenda items to discuss.
If you are organizing your simulation at a school, you may need a teacher to serve as an advisor, especially at the high school or secondary school level. Reference your school’s guidelines on establishing clubs and organizations to understand what requirements need to be met in order to establish your MUN. It may help to write a statement of purpose so that you can explain to administrators, teachers, and students why you want to start a MUN and, later on, why people should become involved.
Logistics
Answer questions such as:
● Where and when will you meet?
● What resources will you need?
● What sort of communications system will you use? (email list, group chat, etc.)
It is important to have a regular meeting schedule, especially if most people in your simulation are new to MUN. This gives you more opportunities to practice the skills related to MUN and get feedback from one another about how you can improve.
Organizing Workshops
Practice makes perfect! Whether you are preparing for a competitive conference or a classroom exercise, the more preparation you do, the better your skills will get. Have meetings dedicated to workshopping specific skills related to MUN, such as:
● Mini simulations that focus on one part of the conference process, i.e. a plenary or committee meeting.
● Independent research time to build skills in identifying reliable sources, detecting bias, etc.
● Public Speaking: Practice speaking slowly, projecting your voice, and establish and abide by maximum time lengths for your remarks.
Joining a Model United Nations Conference… or Hosting your Own!
Once you’ve honed your diplomatic skills, you will want to put them to the test! If you are looking to join a MUN conference where you can collaborate with other MUN organizations, there are several online databases that list upcoming MUN conferences. You can choose to organize and register for a local in-person event, or an online one. There are countless MUN conferences held every year put together by countless organizers, so it is important to do your research to make sure the conference is legitimate and that it is a feasible option for all your members. Given the range of options available, there is sure to be something suitable.
To organize your own MUN Conference, please reference the more detailed advice laid out in Chapter 4 of the United Nations Guide to Model UN.
II. FOR MODEL UN DELEGATES
Which Member States should be included in a simulation?
One of the major objectives of a MUN conference is to explore international affairs and issues, and the various ways they are dealt with across the globe. Therefore, it is important that economically, politically, and geographically diverse Member States are represented in a MUN conference.
What Member States you include depends on two main factors: the topic of your agenda, and the size of your group. Your Member States should be relevant to the agenda, for example in simulations of the Security Council, you should include its five Permanent Members: China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Generally, you may wish to include Member States facing specific challenges or who wield a lot of power with regard to your selected topic. You could also include Member States in conflict with one another plus more “neutral” mediator Member States to help facilitate agreement.
Lastly, do not forget the smaller Member States. At the United Nations, all Member States enjoy “sovereign equality” according to the UN Charter, regardless of their perceived power. This does not mean you should ignore the reality of global power dynamics when negotiating, but you should respect and include all countries as partners in achieving international cooperation. Additionally, it can be an interesting learning experience and a bit more of a challenge to include smaller, lesser-known Member States.
Rules of Procedure
Understanding the United Nations includes understanding the administrative and procedural systems that it uses. Debating with rules of procedure that are as realistic as possible allows students to more accurately experience both the advantages and difficulties that delegates face when trying to reach an agreement.
No matter the size of the conference or which United Nations organ is being simulated, the same basic principles apply: Participants are assigned a UN Member State, and they simulate what it would be like to be the delegate from that Member State to one of the UN organs. The participants will have to become knowledgeable on background information about their country and its position on the issue being negotiated in order to represent the views of their assigned Member State — they do not represent their own views. You may not always agree with the policy positions of your assigned Member State, as may be the case for professional delegates working at the United Nations.
It is important for the accuracy of the simulation to have a solid understanding of the specific rules of procedure that are applicable to your conference. The Rules of Procedure for simulating the General Assembly (GA) can be found on the “Rules of Procedure” page in Chapter 5 of the UN Guide to Model UN. Other parts of this chapter further detail the rules for other processes that may be part of your MUN simulation.
Adopting an Agenda
An agenda is the formal list of items or issues that you will consider and address during a conference. A good place to start when deciding what kind of topics you want to discuss is the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which cover a large range of themes that are regularly discussed and negotiated at the United Nations. Another suggestion is to check the website of the President of the General Assembly (PGA) to see what the priorities of the Assembly are for that session. This will give you an idea of what the most current topics are at the United Nations.
Once your agenda has been established, you should assemble a series of basic documents about the topic(s) in order to guide the research of your participants. Share these documents with your team. Institutional websites, such as UN websites or NGO websites related to your topic, can be a very helpful starting point. Additionally, the Dag Hammarskjöld Library has many online research guides that may be useful.
For more resources for researching the UN and its Member States, please visit the General Information about the United Nations and Additional Resources pages of the United Nations Guide to Model UN.
To learn more about how an agenda is adopted in the UN and how it might be done in a MUN setting, reference the “Agenda, Work Plan, Documents, and Rules of Procedure” in the United Nations Guide to Model UN.
Research for Model United Nations
To prepare for a Model UN simulation, you must familiarize yourself with:
- The history, structure, and work of the United Nations, and
- The background and political positions of your Member State.
A brief History of the UN is essential to understanding what events led to the existence of the United Nations and why an organization dedicated to international cooperation is so important. You can find the principles that the United Nations is built on in the Core Documents of the United Nations and the Three Pillars of UN Work. Additionally, it is helpful to research any major treaties or agreements that are relevant to the topic of your MUN simulation.
It is also important to understand the structure of the United Nations; how the UN organs, programmes, and entities work together. You can read about the six organs of the United Nations here, and about the UN family of organizations here. There is an accompanying UN System Chart that you can reference to see how the whole system collaborates to promote the mission of the United Nations.
When it comes to researching your assigned Member State, background information such as the country’s geography, political structure, economic situation, and demographics should come first. This type of information allows you to effectively understand and represent the Member State in discussions and negotiations. From here, you can access UN documents such as Member States on the Record, Member State Voting Data, and what treaties your Member State is party to in order to gain deeper, more specific knowledge on the topic(s) of your MUN simulation.
Once you have a thorough understanding of your Member State and its positions, you can look into the positions of the other Member States you will be negotiating with. While you will probably not carry out research as extensively as you did for your own Member State, there are three key questions you should keep in mind:
- Are there other Member States or Observers who share your view?
- What Member States or Observers are opposed to your view?
- Is your Member State affiliated with any regional organizations that it wants to stay aligned with?
These questions will help you understand which Member States will be your allies in negotiations, and which Member States will pose more of a challenge to reach an agreement with.
What is the Consensus-Building Model? How does my MUN use it?
Model United Nations is more than a debate on international issues. It is about cooperation and negotiation, seeing and taking into account the perspectives of others to reach an agreement. Many Model UN simulations use “Parliamentary Procedure” rules, in which delegates present and vote on motions in order to move the process forward. However, the United Nations is not a parliament. It is a space for nations to come together, discuss common problems, and find shared solutions that benefit everyone. In most instances in the United Nations, agreements are made by consensus. Voting is used as a last resort when a consensus cannot be reached.
When resolutions about agenda items are adopted by vote, there is much less need to understand the perspectives of those who disagree. Within the context of the UN, voting can be a divisive process that creates a winners-versus-losers dichotomy. The losing side may feel ignored and have less interest in cooperating with the international system. On the other hand, adopting a resolution by consensus requires investing significant time and energy in ensuring that all voices are heard. It is the best way to honour the sovereign equality of all nations. Especially since the resolutions of the General Assembly are non-binding, adopting a resolution by consensus rather than voting increases the likelihood that the actions agreed upon will be implemented. Although time is limited at MUN conferences, prioritizing the Consensus-Building Model as much as possible creates a more realistic and dynamic conference for all participants.