By Neo Mathibe
United Nations (UN) Lesotho and the Youth Programmes at the South African Institute of International Affairs (Youth@SAIIA) will host a virtual Model United Nations (MUN) conference in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the UN today.
The virtual MUN conference will consist of students and youth leaders from across Lesotho, and will reflect on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals which are a global call to action to end poverty, protect the earth’s environment and climate, and ensure that people everywhere can enjoy peace and prosperity.
MUN is an academic simulation of the UN; participants are assigned topics within a particular body or agency, like a security council session on the situation in South Sudan and a country to represent. The participants are supposed to be between the ages of 14-24 and currently living in Lesotho.
Participants become delegates of their assigned country and must research the topic from their country’s perspective. They must write policy briefings and then engage in the debate and negotiation process while representing their countries. Keeping in line with their country’s stance, the ultimate goal for each session of model UN is for delegates to work together to create a resolution to the issue being discussed.
This session will be a special seating of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). This session will be under the theme ‘75 years of the UN’, and it will consider current events and reimagine the future of the UN and international cooperation to tackle today’s global challenges.
