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MUNRFE representatives at WIMUN 2017, New York
On February 1-4, MUNRFE Executive Director, Ms. Elena Kiseleva and Ms. Victoria Yavorskaya have taken part in the World Federation of the United Nations Associations (WFUNA) International MUN (WIMUN) 2017 in New York, USA. Prior the event both ladies have successfully passed the international selection process and became the only representatives from the Russian Federation. Ms. Kiseleva performed the duties of the Secretary of the General Assembly Committee One (University division) and Ms. Yavorskaya performed the duties of the Secretary of the General Assembly Committee Three (High School division). This year WIMUN gathered more than 800 participants from around 65 countries. The agenda of the conference was devoted to the Sustainable Development Goal 16: “Peace, justice and strong institutions”.
The list of the key-note speakers at the opening and closing ceremonies in the UN GA Hall included the Special Adviser for Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals the Ambassador Dessima Williams, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information at the United Nations Cristina Gallach, Policy Advisor for Governance & Peacebuilding in UNDP's Bureau for Policy & Programme Support Mr. Chris Murgatroyd and other respected speakers and guests. The event was also marked with the participation of Mr. Bonian Golmohammadi, the Secretary-General of the WFUNA and Mr. Bill Yotive, the main author of the UN4MUN Concept and the former Project Coordinator for the Global Teaching and Learning Project of the Education Outreach section of the UN Department for Public Information. UN4MUN Rules of Procedure fully correspond with real UN practices and procedures and emphasize the decision-making by the Member States. The main focus of the conference is not an adoption of a resolution by a majority vote, but adoption of a resolution by consensus. The entire process (and all formal meetings) is led by the GA officials: President and Vice-Presidents for GA Plenary and Chairs, Vice-Chairs, and Rapporteurs (altogether referred as Bureau) for GA Committees. These officials are elected from and by the delegates before the Conference, while the Secretariat is appointed by the Secretary-General and does not interfere in the decision-making. In turn, the Secretariat provides infrastructure and logistics, together with SG reports (which serve as traditional background guides). In particular, prior the Conference being the GA Secretaries Ms. Kiseleva and Ms. Yavorskaya were in charge of writing their SG reports on the committee agenda items.
MUNRFE representatives were first introduced to UN4MUN Concept in 2014, when MUNRFE Director-General Mr. Vitaly Savenkov and the Executive Director Ms. Elena Kiseleva attended UN4MUN Workshop in Tokyo. Since 2015 MUNRFE has been involved in participation in WIMUN, when Mr. Savenkov attended WIMUN in New York (2015) and WIMUN India (2016). Moreover, MUNRFE became the first MUN organization in Russia to implemented a Conference following the UN4MUN approach – the Far Eastern Model UN 2016 in the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) in Vladivostok. This year MUNRFE is striving to preserve and continue the tradition of conducting UN4MUN Conferences and will be implementing the Far Eastern Model UN 2017 on May 3-6 in FEFU.
