Delegate support
Good debate starts with good data...
And that's why delegate support is here. It's here to link you to that data.
Delegate support
Delegate support is in essence where we aggregate all resources that might be beneficial to delegates. This means links to videos, articles, ebooks, etc.
General links
MUN Blog - Articles on MUN from past mun participants, and soon, articles from the press section.
United Nations Association USA
Arkansas Model United Nations - Visit the subpages on the left to get information on MUN. Note that some procedures are not identical to MUN. Please cross-check with the official manual. This is your authoritative source for MUN procedures.
Research Tools
Fundamental documents:
Universal declaration of human rights
Security Council provisional rules of procedure
International organisations:
Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations
United Nations Development Programme
Search engines, content aggregators, general information:
Answers.com - Gathers data from several sources, including wikipedia
Wolfram Alpha - Good for research on countries
Politics, foreign policy, news analysis:
The economist special reports (Be sure to check out the print edition and specifically, the politics this week section)
The economist debates (good to find out how to formulate arguments and debate)
Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounders (Most of the content in other parts of the website pertains to U.S foreign policy)
Science (climate change, GMOs, latest research, etc.):
Sciencedaily (summaries of research papers. You can search to find studies that will support your arguments)
Foodconsumer.org (Great for population and health commission)
Economy/business/markets:
United nations:
Statistics and country information:
Nationmaster - NationMaster is a vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, UN, and OECD
Missions to the UN - Useful in finding policies of your country on certain issues
CIA world factbook - The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities.
Wollfram Alpha - Today's Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable
by anyone. Enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and a growing collection of data to compute the
answer. Good for obtaining data on countries.
Background notes on countries (U.S department of state. Also indicates diplomatic status of contries with USA)
Talks, debates, documentaries (video)
United Nations Webcast
You will need to install realplayer to view the videos. Download it here.
Highly recommended on the webcast:
3. Economic and Social council videos
TED.com
TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year's TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.
Does not only have talks on technology, entertainment and design. There are also talks on world issues.
Highly recommended on TED.com
1. Hans Gosling on poverty - stunning statistics, presented using groundbreaking methods
2. Al Gore on averting the climate crisis
Poptech
Pop!Tech is a one-of-a-kind conference, a community of remarkable people, and an ongoing conversation about science, technology and the future of ideas. View the popcasts here.
MIT World
Which ideas and innovations can change the world?
MIT World™ answers that question by publishing key presentations by the MIT faculty and guest speakers who are shaping the future. These free, on-demand videos, available 24/7 to viewers worldwide, reflect and extend MIT’s educational mission—to provide the best education in science, technology, and related fields—to engaged learners anytime, anywhere.
More a publication of thought leadership, and less a news site, MIT World aims to capture the pulse and excitement of the range of ideas discussed at MIT every day and share them with the world. A growing archive of more than 585 works offers insights on topics ranging from architecture to innovation to technology and sustainability. Cumulatively, these presentations by world-class thinkers and doers map great ideas in the making.
Doha debates
The Doha Debates are a unique venture in the Arab world, providing a battleground for conflicting opinions and arguments about the major political topics of the region.
While governments around the world tighten restrictions on press freedom, the Doha Debates openly dissect the vital issues of the Middle East in front of its people and on global TV.
For the first time in their life, many young Arabs are having their say on key political questions – challenging politicians and experts face to face.
They engage in time-honoured rivalry – where the only weapons are words.
They practice the art of peaceful disagreement: understanding and respecting different views.
It’s a new reality.
A new way forward.
Archived debates here
You can learn to speak in publicand debate on this website. You can also learn about issues in the middle east on this website. Note that Oxford Style debate is used in these debates, not parliamentary debate. MUN follows different procedures, termed parliamentary procedure.
UN in action
UN in ACTION, an award-winning television series, reports on the work of the UN and its Agencies around the world. These 3- to 5-minute features illustrate UN peacekeeping efforts as well as projects aimed at reducing poverty and human suffering, fighting disease, providing humanitarian assistance and stimulating economic growth.
21st Century
UNTV's series of 12 x 26' news-magazine programmes puts a spotlight on the world's most underreported stories. Each episode features 2-3 character-driven, human interest stories that reflect some of the most important issues affecting the world, and our lives today. Our cameras offer unique and often unparalleled access to people and places and stay to bring you the stories as they unfold over time, long after other news outlets leave. From the child labour situation in Tanzania to the woman's struggle in Afghanistan, from the poverty streets in Somalia to the frontline of the guerilla war in Colombia, this series brings home the stories viewers care about, but rarely see.
Information about debating
Note that these links are here to show how to debate in general, whatever the style. Some of these guides/websites adhere to Oxford-Style debate. In mun, we use Parliamentary debate.
https://www.learndebating.com/download.htm
- Simon Quinn (a QatarDebate coach) wrote this detailed guide on World Schools’ format debating. The guide a very useful resource to use when developing your debating or coaching as it contains sample debate motions, development games and answers the questions of beginner, intermediate and advanced debaters.
https://www.schoolsdebate.com/docs/notes.asp
- The official judging guide for the World Schools Debating Championships (the same format as used in Qatar). This guide contains more information about how to judge a debate on Content, Style and Strategy under the official World Schools rules.
https://www.britishdebate.com
- The official website of debating in the United Kingdom. British Debating uses a slightly different format to debating in Qatar (British Parliamentary format) but the website contains links to useful information about debating and how to improve your debating.
https://worlddebating.blogspot.com/
- The World Debate Blog. This website is a portal to the international debating community. Information about competitions held around the world as well as coaching and adjudication resources are available.
https://www.debatabase.org
- The Debatabase is a collection of Proposition and Opposition cases for over 300 different debates. The website is useful as a starting point when researching arguments, but don’t just take your arguments from the site.
https://www.oxfordschools.org.uk
- The website of the Oxford Union Schools’ Debating Competition, the largest debating competition of its type in the world. The website contains information about British Parliamentary
Note: Thanks to mamta for the links to UNA, NationMaster, Foodconsumer and Arkansas Model United Nations
