The main topic of the conference will be “The Millennium Development Goals: Lifting the bottom billion out of poverty” with English and French as the working languages. One of the objectives of the Global Model United Nations Conference is to replicate the functioning of the United Nations deliberative bodies as closely as possible. And MUNRFE will be represented at this great event!

For the Global Model UN, each member state delegation will be comprised of students from different countries. For that reason, delegates will arrive in Geneva on 2 August to be able to participate in preparatory and information activities for the conference and to get better acquainted with other members of delegations.

To assist with the planning and organization of the simulation, a group of university students will function as secretariat officials, similar to those in the United Nations Secretariat. A second group of university students will be selected as General Assembly officials. Both sets of roles are critical to the management of the General Assembly and will, therefore, be important to the success of the simulation. The aim is to have a geographically diverse GMUN Secretariat and General Assembly officials who will take on leadership roles in the planning process, with the guidance of UN staff and the Planning Committees’ Chairpersons appointed by the UN Department of Public Information.

The UN DPI provides trainings for the Conference Secretariat and General Assembly officials to enhance their skills to fulfill their functions in the Global Model United Nations Conference. During these days, from 27 to 31 July, people fulfilling the abovementioned positions, will be provided training in their leadership roles, and an opportunity for the entire group of student leaders to work together to finalize the plans for the conference at the venue in Geneva.

One of MUNRFE members – Violetta Davydenko became the part of this conference as the member of the group of General Assembly Officials who will lead the first annual Global Model United Nations Conference.

She was selected as the Rapporteur of the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization). Being one

of the GMUN General Assembly officials, is a tremendous challenge of assisting in organizing and planning the conference for an estimated 700 delegates from all over the world.

GMUN has now selected all General Assembly Officials and therefore has an excellent slate of officials who will all be invited to a pre-conference workshop in Geneva during the last week of July. The final workshop for the all members of the Global Model UN Conference Secretariat and the General Assembly Officials (27 students) will take place in Geneva, one week before the conference. For this workshop, the entire team will be organized to work together to undertake the final planning and logistics for the conference.

MUNRFE should be proud of the high level of its participants’ achievements as among 8 people, representing Russia on this conference (including the chaperson) – 2 are the members. Michael Shevchenko also was selected to take part in the conference as the delegate, which once again reaffirms the value of debating skills the organization produces.

For details, please, see http://www.un.org/gmun/index.html - official conference web-site