Model UN Reform & Building Global Citizens
“The Model United Nations (MUN) program has been missing the reform component to demonstrate to students how many people are left without a voice and vote as a result of the unequal power dynamics of the P5.”
When studying how the UN system works, I became discouraged that our biggest international system of peace, security, and cooperation is utterly flawed and, in many ways, undemocratic. We just keep repeating these grave mistakes at the expense of millions of lives, year after year. With so many conflicts burning around the world, it’s easy to become jaded and indifferent because everything seems or appears to remain hopeless. On the other hand, it takes a lot of work to be able to say, “we can make this world a better place”. It takes a lot of collective action and persistence and energy, which is always the more difficult path.
I was at such a juncture in my life when I began coordinating and directing Model United Nations (MUN) programs; and that’s what pulled me back into a place of hope and persistence.
Let me briefly explain MUN for those that are unfamiliar with it. It’s a youth program (which is geared towards middle school, high school, and college students) that’s run all over the world to give students a chance to participate in mock UN simulations.
Students can participate in the General Assembly, the Security Council, and dozens of other UN committees. They are assigned a country to represent, they do research and prepare to debate on a specific topic at an MUN Conference.
Regardless of their background and beliefs, students must take on the perspective of that country and work collaboratively with other delegates towards a common goal.
I love MUN and it inspires me because it’s a youth program that has the potential to create global citizens.
Why does creating global citizens matter in today’s polarized political environment?
Students learn about global governance, real-world issues that we are facing today, and gain a different perspective from their own. In addition, they learn about human rights, peace and security, and how do engage in respectful dialogue with one another. They are introduced to this idea of the interconnectedness of humankind through social, political, environmental emergencies and the economic actions of state players on a global scale.
With my understanding of how flawed the UN system is, I always wanted to try and take MUN a step further. In the last few years I have been privileged to work with the Workable World Trust to do just that. The idea is simple: to help introduce the MUN world to reform thinking.
The idea is to challenge youth a little more—to not just understand how the UN works through MUN, but to critically think about how the current system is set up, how undemocratic it is, and to think outside the box on how to change the status quo. Essentially, taking reform ideas that already exist and implement those at MUN Conferences.
I began this work back in 2018 as a pilot program at the Mexico City International Model United Nations (MIMUN) conference. Our first year was run in the General Assembly and it was not well received. Students had a difficult time grasping what we were doing and why.
Our colleagues at MIMUN suggested that we come back the next year with a reform Security Council committee because it’s easier to show how unequal and undemocratic this critical committee is to our peace and security within the UN system. We created curricula and modules based on the late Joe Schwartzberg’s book, “Transforming the United Nations Systems: Designs for a Workable World”. I also created training modules for staff and students alike. When I returned to MIMUN in 2019 and implemented the Reform Security Council Committee, it was a hit—students craved this kind of engagement and were hungry for more. The Reform Security Council Committee ran successfully for two years before the pandemic hit and upended our lives.
In my opinion, the MUN program has been missing the reform component to demonstrate to students how many people are left without a voice and vote as a result of the unequal power dynamics of the P5. For example, students are floored when I tell them that 35% of Member States have never served on the Security Council (or 68 states out of the 193), which is over 335 million people left out as a voice/vote on the Security Council (this fact and others like this in the curricula are taken directly from Joe’s book). This is just one example out of hundreds.
However, with the reform modules, we can for the first time within the space of MUN, get into these complex issues.
Do I think that students who participate in reform MUN will have the power to reform the Security Council? Of course not, but that is not the point. For me the hope is that the youth that participate in this program will think critically about the status quo and take this same critical thinking process back home and be inspired to take action in their own way.
My hope is that we can help shape global citizens that are active in their communities at different levels –from local to national to global—and take action to make the world more equitable and sustainable for us all. They are informed and critically think about how to thoughtfully bring about meaningful change.
Why are global citizens so crucial to our work? Global citizens uphold human rights. Global citizens engage in community and global governance affairs and issues. Global citizens respect the rule of law and respect others. Global citizens take action when others’ rights are violated.
We should all strive to not just be global citizens but help build the next generation of them as well.
