UNDP

Sorry for the delay…but here they are! Thank you Israel for the reminder

Sample Resolution:

The wonderful delegates!

Research Awards (in alphabetical order):

Canada

China

Colombia

France

Germany

Mali

Commendations (in alphabetical order):

France

Germany

South Africa

United Arab Emirates

 United Kingdom

Outstanding Awards (in alphabetical order):

China

Colombia

Russia

Gavel:

Chile

Bring an umbrella. It’s supposed to rain here this weekend. And Berkeley is mighty hilly, so ladies and gentlemen, be sure to bring a pair of comfortable shoes to wear when committee is not in session.

I wanted to personally thank all the delegates for keeping our UNDP blog alive. Your participation is much appreciated, and I have duly noted your activities in evaluating your position papers for those of you that submitted them. I feel like I know some of you better after having read your comments, and am looking forward to meeting you in person.

Due to time constraints, however, comments after noon tomorrow (Thursday) will not be  considered in evaluating your overall grade for position papers. I do, however, encourage you all to keep on participating until the day of the conference. Keep the questions coming, as I am more than happy to you help in any way.

 Best of luck this weekend - I hope everyone is as excited as I am

Most sincerely,

London

PS: If you write me an e-mail, please title them with UNDP in capital letters in the subject heading somewhere so I know to read them right away.

Distribution of materials prepared in advance (before the commencement of the comittee) will not be allowed in UNDP. Distribution of materials prepared while the committee is in session may be allowed upon the head chair’s discretion. Please contact the head chair if you have any more questions and/or concerns.

This has nothing to do with our committee, really, but I thought it was interesting…well, can anyone draw an intellectual argument from this article having to do with either one of our topics? That should be fun. And if anyone finds articles relating to our committee, feel free to send a link to london (at) berkeley.edu, and I’ll be sure to post it on our blog for all to share.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3486141.ece

Richard Ford and Adam Fresco  

The price of cocaine has fallen to a record low as a United Nations report says that celebrity users have made the drug socially acceptable.

Police say privately that cocaine is becoming as acceptable in middle-class Britain as cannabis was a generation ago and that they are losing their battle against the drug.

The UN drug control agency’s annual report, published today, puts the blame at the door of celebrity culture and accuses the police of turning a blind eye to the rich and famous who misuse the drug.

“Celebrity drug offenders can profoundly influence attitudes, values and behaviour towards drug abuse, particularly among young people,” it said. “The authorities should ensure that celebrities who violate drug laws are made accountable.”

The criticism comes after widespread media coverage of the drug problems of the singers Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse. Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said that he would launch an inquiry. “It is vital that we look at the law governing drugs and their availability in the light of this information,” he said. “We need to be tough on the use of drugs, especially by those who may be seen as role models.”

The UN report says that Britain, Spain and Italy have the highest levels of cocaine misuse in Europe and warns that West Africa is becoming a hub for traffickers. The drug is smuggled out of Colombia through Brazil and Venezuela to countries such as Benin, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Senegal on board ships, private yachts and private aircraft. It is then repacked in smaller quantities and smuggled into Europe by air. The main airports used are Dakar, Conakry, Freetown, Banjul, Accra and Lagos.

Hamid Ghodse, a member of the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board, said that most of the cocaine from West Africa entered Europe through Spain and Portugal, with smaller amounts direct from the Caribbean.

“The organised criminal gangs have lots of resources, they have lots of power,” he said. “They never get near the drugs themselves and therefore operate with impunity”.

Government figures show that the average cost of a gram of cocaine on the streets has gone down from £71 a decade ago to £45 last year. Harry Shapiro, of the charity Drugscope, said: “Consumers are being given a two-tier market. They can buy lower quality cocaine for £30 a gram or pay £50 to £60 for higher quality cocaine.”

The UN report also expressed concern about opium production in Afghanistan. Professor Ghodse said that he believed that the international forces there had lost control. Production rose to 8,200 tons last year.

A: Yes…but not all of you. Around 8 delegates brought their laptops last year, and that seemed like a good number. We started with many resolutions with very few sponsors, but they later merged with other resolutions by combining certain operative clauses to yielde 3-4 distinct resolutions for the final voting bloc (flash drives came in very handy, I recall). Keep in mind that we will not be in a room that has enough outlets to accomodate any more than 3-4 laptops, and that the use of these laptops will be limited to resolution writing ONLY.

Feel free to use this blog to ask other delegates what they will be doing. If you know your school has multiple delegates in UNDP, talk to each other and plan ahead. Oh, and remember that you’ll have to carry your laptop with you every time we have a break, as the rooms will not be locked in between meals and so forth.

 We hope this helps. If you have any more questions, leave a comment and we’ll be sure to respond ASAP.

Here are the official position paper guidelines as printed in the delegate guide.

Position Paper Guidelines

A few other things:

1. Please try to include a title page if possible - it helps us keep track of all the papers that we receive.
2. Please use size 12 font that is easy to read. Double space it, with 1″ margin all around.
3. Length - most papers that we receive have ranged from 8 to 12 pages in the past, but length has not necessarily been indicative of quality. As long as you meet the requirements outlined in the guidelines, you should be fine.
4. Please staple all of your pages together so they don’t fall apart. And just in case they do, use a header with delegation and page number (ex: China, 2/7)

So…who had chocolate this past Valentine’s Day? Here is a cool article on how global partnerships better the livelihood of cocoa farmers so that the decadent treats can continue to win our hearts over year after year:

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Accra - Which ever way you eat yours, the next time you sink your teeth into a Cadbury’s Cream Egg be assured that a local Ghanaian cocoa farmer will be taking home a bite of the profits. Cadbury, the world’s leading confectionery company, announced in Accra, Ghana, today the establishment of the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership together with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Ghanaian Government and other partners, in an initiative designed to secure the sustainable livelihoods of a million farmers in cocoa-growing communities across Ghana, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean.Cadbury is to invest seed funding of US$2 million (£1 million) in 2008 to establish the Partnership, with annual funding levels rising to US$10 million (£5 million) by 2010. Seventy percent of the funds will be invested in small farming communities in Ghana, which provides the cocoa beans for Cadbury’s UK chocolate including Cadbury Dairy Milk, Wispa, Flake, Creme Egg and Buttons. The announcement marks the centenary of Cadbury Brothers’ trading partnership with Ghana.

With current cocoa yields hitting only 40 percent of their potential in the African country, the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership is designed to improve the income of cocoa farmers by helping them increase their yields and produce top quality beans, introduce new sources of rural income through microfinance and business support, and invest in community-led development from schools and libraries to biodiversity protection projects and wells for clean water.

The pioneering public-private model will be led from the grassroots up, with farmers, non-governmental organisations, governments and international agencies including the United Nations working together to determine how best to spend the money and turn plans into sustainable action.

Announcing the partnership, Matt Shattock, President of Cadbury Britain, Ireland, the Middle East and Africa, said: “Sustainable cocoa production is vital to Cadbury’s commercial success: not simply the supply of our most important ingredient, but guaranteeing a reliable, long term source of the right quality cocoa, produced to the high standards our business, customers and our consumers expect.”

With its development expertise and longstanding experience of working with partners in Ghana, UNDP will help to maximize the effectiveness of Cadbury’s investments over the next 10 years.

Welcoming the initiative, UNDP’s Resident Representative in Ghana, Daouda Touré, said: “UNDP strives to promote inclusive, sustainable development, where everyone benefits as a country gets to grips with fighting poverty. With this new win-win approach developed with Cadbury, where both the small producer and the consumer benefit, we hope to show just how effectively sustainable cocoa production can be in generating improved opportunities for local farmers, conserving the environment and building a brighter future for younger generations.”

James Boateng, Managing Director of Cadbury Ghana, added: “In the centenary of our relationship with the cocoa farming industry in Ghana, we are incredibly proud to launch the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership in Accra today which we hope will have a lasting impact on the lives of cocoa farmers.”

“I grew up on a cocoa farm, and owe my education to the prosperity which cocoa brought to my family, and look forward to contributing to the future of cocoa farming. In Ghana there is a phrase ‘Coco obatanpa’ which means ‘Cocoa is a good parent; it looks after you.’  We hope with this initiative Cadbury and our partners can be a good parent to cocoa.”

http://content.undp.org/go/newsroom/2008/january/cadbury-undp-ghana-20080128.en

Hello, delegates –

The guidelines below are for the 56^th session of BMUN UNDP position papers only – please review them, as they have been generated with much consideration to be as comprehensive as they can be. If you have any other questions, please feel free to leave a comment, and we will be sure to answer you promptly. Best of luck!

Topic Discussion:

Please make sure that the historical research, discussion of current events, and the subsequent key issues are relevant to your delgegation. Generalizing or grouping of nations and/or their policies according to “common sense” has proven to be ineffective in the past, especially without citing secondary sources that explain why certain nations would best discussed in relation to others.

Past United Nations Actions:

Delegates are advised to demonstrate their wealth of knowledge on past UN actions, but a long, laundry list of them would not only be tangential, but distracting. Be concise. Be brief. Choose them wisely, and show us why they matter. Your ability to refine the information gathered in your research should be your main concern. Remember, it’s about quality, not quantity.

Delegation Policy:

Clearly state your delegation’s policy, and be sure to provide a solid context for the solutions to follow.

Proposed Solution:

This is where you will be rewarded for your ingenuity. Keep in mind that the vice chairs and I will be reading many, many papers just like yours – if you make an extra effort to set yours apart with either a highly controversial or innovative proposition, we will definitely take that into account and grade you accordingly. But this is by no means an invitation to be WILD without regards to the guidelines listed above. This is rather an invitation to let your creative juices flow without losing sight of what the position papers are really all about.

To make your solutions technically sound and convincing, anticipate as many opposing arguments as you can, and address them to illustrate your thorough understanding of the implications that accompany your solution. Those of you that have participated in formalized debates may already be familiar with this method of rebuttal, and I personally have found it to be very effective in the past.

References:

Plagiarism of any kind will not be tolerated. When in doubt, CITE it. If you have more parenthetical information than analysis on a single page, you’re probably doing the right thing. If you’re found plagiarizing, you will be disqualified for any reward, and I will be notifying your adviser about the plagiarism as well. You may also end up jeopardizing other delegates from your school from receiving any awards that they deserve, so please be careful.

Please use the Modern Language Associate (MLA) style to write your papers and cite sources.

Final Remarks:

The overall fluidity of the papers will be noted in grading of them. Please try to make everything cohesive from introduction to conclusion with use of transitional phrases and the like. Usage of correct grammar and lack of mechanical errors will be expected and thus rewarded appropriately.  Participation on this blog may be factored in to your benefit as well.