GC POSITION PAPER: INTRODUCTION

The introduction of your Global Classrooms position paper should

provide a synopsis of the basic facts of the topic of debate, with a
slight skew (or bias) towards your own countrys position. It should
address the main issues of the debate, why the UN should care, why
your country cares, and should end with your countrys position.
The introduction should be 4-5 sentences, or 2-3 longer, more
developed sentences.
This page contains a guided outline of how you should structure your
introduction, along with questions you should be answering. The
following page contains an example. DO NOT simply copy the
information from the example or you will receive no credit.
OUTLINE: EXPANDING THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN
GOVERNANCE
Heading:
Name of Country
Name of Committee (UN Women)
Name of School
Topic (Expanding the Role of Women in Governance)
First Sentence: Why is expanding the role of women in governance
important for the committee to address?
Make sure to have an interesting first sentence that grabs the
readers attention
Start off general and assume the reader doesnt know anything
Second Sentence: What is the debate over womens roles in
governance about?
Provide a quick summary of the debate so that your reader knows
where you are coming from and what the tension or problem is
Why does something need to be done?
Third/Fourth Sentence: Why does your country care about
expanding the role of women in governance? Do women in your
country suffer from this issue?
Think about education, job opportunities, discrimination, and gender
roles in your country. How are women affected by these problems and
why do they result in inequality?
This is a good place to use quotes or statistics to support what you are
saying

Fourth/Fifth Sentence: What is your countrys opinion/attitude

towards this topic?
Do you believe the debate over women in governance needs to be
addressed?
Is your country in favor of taking action in the debate? Will your
country be active in addressing the problems of the debate, and then
taking action to solve the problems before it is too late?
Remember to have a strong ending that will stick in the readers
mind.

GC POSITION PAPER: BODY PARAGRAPHS

Your body paragraphs will be divided into two sections: National and
International Actions. This means you should only need two
paragraphs, but it is ok to separate them if needed. The body
paragraphs are the meat of the paper, and are meant to provide the
reader with a history of your countrys actions, so that your stance
and proposed resolutions are clear. This is where you will have a
chance to provide more quotes and statistics to support your countrys
opinion.
Both paragraphs should be 4-6 well-developed sentences.
This worksheet is a guide to help you in structuring your paragraphs,
and addresses questions that you should answer. Remember that this
is a GUIDE, and you are free to write as you choose.
PARAGRAPH 1: NATIONAL ACTIONS ON THE TOPIC OF
EXPANDING THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN GOVERNANCE
First (and maybe second) Sentence: Is access to an education or
the opportunity to work outside the home for women a problem in
your country? Do they participate in politics and can they vote in
elections? Why or why not?
This is your chance to delve further into how opportunities for women
are limited/a source of contention in your country. If you didnt have
time to address it in the introduction, you have time to address it
here.
What kind of role do women play in your country? What are some
statistics that could support your opinion on the need for gender
equality?

Second Sentence: First example of an action (law, measure,

program, petition, etc.) that your country has done to address the
issue of gender inequality within the country.
This should come from a government website
Has your country made education available to women?
Has your country granted women the right to vote?
Do women participate in politics and in elections?

Third Sentence: Explain how this action shows your country is

working towards addressing the debate on gender inequality.
What does this action show the reader/UN?
Was this action successful?
How does the action show your side of the issue?
Why should the UN care that you took this action?
What did you learn from taking this action?

Fourth Sentence: Second example of an action (law, measure,

program, petition, etc.) that your country has done to address the
issue of gender inequality within the country.
This should come from a government website
Has your country implemented some sort of program to help women
find jobs outside the home?
Has your country implemented some sort of program or quota system
to increase womens participation in government?
Does the government work to help women reach high-level positions?

Fifth Sentence: Explain how this action shows your country is

working towards addressing the debate of gender inequality. Was this
action successful?
What does this action show the reader/UN?
Was this action successful?
How does the action show your side of the issue?
Why should the UN care that you took this action?
What did you learn from taking this action?

Sixth Sentence: Summary of what these actions have meant, and a

lead-in to international actions.
Provide a clear statement of what these national actions should mean
within the context of the debate on gender inequality and your
countrys opinion
Remember to end strong, and provide a means of transitioning into
international actions
PARAGRAPH 2: INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS ON THE TOPIC OF
EXPANDING THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN GOVERNANCE

First Sentence: Show your country recognizes the international

importance of this issue.
What is your attitude about this topic within the context of the
international effects and the world?

Second/Third/Fourth Sentence: What has your country done on the

international scale in order to address the debate on gender
inequality?
Are you a member of any international organization that has taken
action on this issue?
What conventions, treaties, resolutions, etc. has your country
supported on the issue?
What actions has your country taken on an international scale?
The use of quotes or statistics would be very effective here.

Fifth/Sixth Sentence: What do these international actions show?

So why should the UN care that you have taken these
actions/supported certain treaties, etc.?
Make sure your stance is clear. Use all the information from the
previous paragraphs as support for your countries position.
Transition into proposed resolutions.

GC POSITION PAPER: RESOLUTIONS + CONCLUSION

Your concluding paragraph is the last paragraph of your position
paper. This is the main purpose of your paper, in which you state your
countrys recommendations for what actions should be taken in order
to bring about a solution to the debate. This solution should be biased
towards your country, but should be feasible within the context of the
entire international community. Your proposed recommendation is
what you will try to pass as a resolution at the actual conference, but
you should present TWO resolution ideas.
The conclusion should be 4-5 well-developed sentences in length.
This worksheet is a guide to help you in writing your conclusion.
Remember to make your recommendation clear and specific.
CONCLUSION:

First Sentence: What does your country recommend?

Remember to tie this into to your previous paragraph using transition
words
State the action you believe should be taken: Do you believe the
current system should be changed?
Do you believe a new system should be put in place?

Second-Fourth Sentences: Explain how your country would suggest

following through with your recommendation.
WHO should take action?
WHERE should that action take place?
WHEN should this action occur? Do you have a goal date to finish?
HOW??? This is the most important question. Make sure you address
where funding or resources will come from.
A famous saying in the USA is Money doesnt grow on
trees. Make sure you know how you will support your
recommendation.
**Your recommendation may involve several parts- that is ok
as long as it all works towards achieving the same goal. You
must do this step TWICE in the paragraph.

Fourth/Fifth Sentence: What role should the international

community take? Concluding opinion.
Now you should once again make clear what the role is you expect
other countries to take in solving the debate on gender inequality.
End with a grabber ending that will stick in the minds of the reader
and really make them feel how important this issue is.

Committee: General Assembly Regional Committee

Topic: Sustainable Development
Country: Vietnam
Environmental problems are changing our world as we know it.
Scientists, media, politicians and citizens from all over the globe have
been more and more aware of that fact. During the last decades, climate
change and global warming have been increasingly important issues in
the political agendas of every state. The first UN conference on
sustainability was the World Summit on Sustainable Development
(WSSD), or Earth Summit 2002, which took place in Johannesburg, South
Africa. The agreement that resulted from that first conference, the

Johannesburg Declaration, is an agreement to focus on the problems that

affect worldwide and threaten the sustainable development of the worlds
citizens, such as chronic hunger; malnutrition; foreign occupation; armed
conflict; illicit drug problems; organized crime; corruption; natural
disasters; etc, and in particular HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
Sustainability depends on a green economy, which the dictionary defines
as a sustainable economy and society with zero carbon emissions and a
one-planet-footprint where all energy is derived from renewable
resources.
Sustainability is relevant throughout Asia since most of the
countries are newly industrialized countries with limited technical
infrastructure and financial resources. For example, Vietnam has an
agriculture-based economy that is becoming more and more
industrialized, leading to the building of infrastructure and factories that
can emit harmful gases and other toxic substances, threatening the
environmental well-being of the ecosystems. Recently, environmental
issues have taken greater priority in Vietnams political agenda.
Vietnams Agenda 21 states that Protection and improvement of
environment quality are to be considered as inseparable factors from the
development process. Moreover, the revised Law on Forest Protection
and Development approved by the National Assembly in November 2004
provides the general framework for the achievement of a more social and
community-based forestry. There is, however, still much work to be done
in order to integrate environmental protection into economic and
development planning.
Vietnams government is aware of the repercussions that
environmental problems have for every inhabitant of Earth. We therefore
form part of many Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), such
as the Conventions on Biodiversity Conservation, Climate Change,
Endangered Species (CITES), Ozone Layer Protection (Montral
Protocol), and Kyoto Protocol and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
Vietnam agrees with Time magazines observation that we cant blow it
good planets are hard to find. All the members of our planet must
work together to preserve it for future generations.
Vietnams first proposal is based on sustainable industrialization.
We uphold the creation of a law requiring every factory built to be
maintained at least in half by renewable energies, such as solar or
hydroelectric power. Since Vietnam is not a completely developed
country, we call upon the UN for financial support to build these power
plants. We also propose tax breaks to reward the businesses that use
renewable energies to power more than half of their factories. Vietnam,
together with other countries, could use Grassroots programs to collect
funds. That money could improve knowledge, tools, capacity and
coordination for development of climate change policy and investment in
Vietnams sustainable development. To raise the percent of the
sustainable development of aquaculture, Vietnam will raise the fishing
production in the form of intensive cultivation, improving the quality of
input materials and diversifying markets. Vietnam suggests creating

more green areas in order to promote a society more conscious about

taking care of the environment. We are also committed to improving the
quality, accessibility, and effectiveness of public transportation, so that
fewer people will rely on cars or motorbikes. Vietnam will follow all the
agreements reached in this conference and we hope our suggestions will
be considered as a path to the improvement of our world.

Kuwait
UN Women 2
Expanding the Role of Women in Governance
Women have not been treated with the same respect as men for
years, but this will change. We need to expand the role of women in
governance in order to have fair rights between men and women. In
this way, the decisions taken would be favorable for both genders, and
not only for the gender to which the person in governance belongs. In
Kuwait, women do not normally go to school because their family does
not let them. If we achieve gender equality, we could have all women
studying, and we will reduce the number of illiterate people. It would
affect our country on a political, cultural and religious level. Even
though women can already work in politics and study at university, we
want to improve gender equality and encourage women to participate
more in politics.
In Kuwait, thanks to the Constitution of 1962, women have the
opportunity to study, work, the right to vote, and to participate in
politics. In Kuwait, there are projects that help women to work
outside of their home. These projects have been implemented by the
Kuwait Economic Society and are called Women Leadership and
Entrepreneurship. They support women engaged in a small or
medium size business by providing opportunities for business growth,
training and experience sharing for women. Thanks to this, women
have experienced improvements in their life but this is not enough.
We need to continue to take down gender barriers. A few years ago,
there were four women in parliament, but now there are no women at
it. According to the article written by Richard Rousseau, Politics,
elections and the reality or womens right in Kuwait, from the
Diplomatic Courier, more or less 57% of women vote in the General
Elections. So Kuwait has achieved a part of gender equality, but we
need to keep on working to achieve it completely.
Kuwait thinks that gender equality is really important, and for
that reason we remodeled the constitution. We are also part of the
Millennium Development Goals; we have completed almost all of
them, with only three, which corresponds to gender equality, and
number seven, which corresponds to the environment, still missing.
In Kuwait there is one day called International Womens Day, which

we celebrate on the 4th of May. We adopted the Declaration of Gender

Equality on the 5th of May 2011, written by the Broader Middle East
and North Africa Initiative (BMENA), whose countries have also
signed it. The Declaration of the Gender Equality shows
that Kuwait really cares about this subject, and that we want to work
with other countries to improve gender equality in our country and in
others like ours.
Talking about gender equality, our first proposal is based on
giving economic help to women in Kuwait so that they can build their
own business, or to give a subvention to the businesses that hire
women as employees. The money would be from the UN Women and
also from our government. Our second proposal is based on promoting
politics in schools in other to encourage women to participate in
politics. There would also be volunteers to give them talks to be more
self confident and to take advantage of the right of becoming involved
in politics. We believe that the first proposal will help many people, as
they will receive help from the volunteer teachers, but these women
can also give help back to other women when they had finished their
studies. The second proposal may also be helpful for women who have
no confidence in themselves and for the ones who do not receive the
support of their family by encouraging them to do what they really
want, not what their families impose on them.

Estonia
United Nations Development Programme
Sustainable Energy for All
The Delegation of Estonia considers sustainable development to
be a key issue affecting future and present generations, as well as our
chance to build a freer, fairer and lasting society. Our country
currently accounts for an electricity production of more than 12
billion kWh/year according to a 2011 official estimate. We are also the
62nd from 213 countries with a highest carbon dioxide emission, more
than 5,000 mega-tonnes a year, as revealed by a 2012 estimate 1. Still,
our country is largely dependent on natural gas imports coming from
Russia. A large port facility is being built in our capital, Tallin, to end
this dependancy and to have more diverse energy suppliers. In
addition, our government has implemented the Sustainable
1 Estonia - The World Factbook. CIA - The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Last
updated on April 10th 2015. Website. Accessed on April 14th
2015.https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2254.html#en

Development 212 strategy in order to combine the development of the

Estonian state with the preservation of its resources and traditional
values.
Bearing in mind the lack of infrastructure suffered by Sub-Saharan
and other developing regions and the unique chances these offer to
implement innovative renewable energy sources, we propose the
creation of regional Energetic Coordination Networks (ECN), for
integrating private and public initiatives, as well as the UNs own
projects, related to energetic sustainability with two main goals: to
ensure all projects are carried out coordinatedly, and to attempt to
gradually replace small energetic grids with new digital smart grid
components, reducing the costs and advancing towards an integration
of all the regions energy production sources into a common network.
Financing each ECN would reach up to initial $1 billion USD, obtained
from both private fund-raising in rich countries and contributions of
those involved in each network proportional to what they provide to
the network.
We also encourage the creation of a World Innovation Workshop
(WIW), aimed at helping outstanding projects to become known and to
have access to the resources that would grant their further
development, by analyzing these projects accuracy, realism and
contribution to the existing ones. Another of our objectives is reducing
by a 50% the use of oil and other fossil fuels by 2030. To achieve this
at a progressive global scale, we suggest empowering mixed
renewable energy sources and fully liberalizing the energy market.
We also encourage promoting green energies by helping to provide
needed facilities such as plugs for electric cars in widely used public
places. Finally, we invite to consider charging fewer taxes to those
who set up their own renewable energy sources such as solar panels.
As the UN has no executive power over countries, this would be
achieved by bilateral programs and commitments, joined by equallyaimed publicity campaigns.

Republic of Estonia
General Assembly
2 Estonian National Strategy on Sustainable Development: Sustainable Estonia 21. Ministry of
the Environment. Estonian Ministry of the Environment (translated into English by Marina Maran. Website.
Accessed on April 12th 2015. http://www.envir.ee/sites/default/files/elfinder/article_files/se21_eng_web.pdf

Eradication of Poverty: Post-2015 Agenda

Nowadays, 1,200 million people all over the world live in
relative poverty, suffering from hunger, homelessness, diseases, and a
lack of money. Nevertheless, thanks to the Millennium Development
Goals and the dedication of the United Nations, the eradication of
poverty is possible. In fact, in 1990, 43% of the world total population
lived on less than $1.25 USD (extreme poverty) a day while in 2011
only 17% did. However, 17% is still devastating. For that reason,
Estonia believes that finding a solution to this issue is of the utmost
importance.
The global improvement achieved by the MDGs is also
reflected in Estonia. From 1990 to 2013 many different initiatives
launched specifically to reduce poverty, have achieved a reduction in
extreme poverty from 13% to 8%. The goal of halving extreme poverty
has almost been achieved. This effort has left us some important
lessons. Poverty is not just one problem with one solution; it is formed
by a series of different factors that define the complex problem of
poverty. To effectively eradicate poverty, each of these factors needs
to be treated individually. And that needs focus and coordination.
Estonia has focused on those factors which were most relevant
to forming the overwhelming cycle of poverty by reinforcing and
enabling one another: unemployment, drugs and corruption.
Unemployment is very high in Estonian youth, reaching 14% of the
young population. This unemployment is the main factor that lead to
Estonia having the highest percentage of illicit drug-related deaths in
Europe. The lucrative illicit drug industry is contributing to frequent
cases of corruption, which introduces many inefficiencies in the
economic aid granted by other countries and the government. Thus,
the creation of jobs for Estonian youth becomes difficult with
corruption, reinforcing this complex poverty cycle. The initiatives
launched include programs to develop employment in rural areas, to
grant scholarships for professional education programs for young
people, to improve access to quality healthcare, to train and reinforce
state police to face the drugs environment, to develop drug
rehabilitation centres, and to develop social awareness on corruption,
among many others.
In the international field, in 2010 Estonian government
approved the Strategy for Estonian Development Cooperation and
Humanitarian Aid 2011-2015. Under this project Estonia has

increased its bilateral development cooperation projects and its

participation in multilateral projects and organisms such as Unicef,
the World Bank, the International MonTAry Fund or the European
Permanent Network. As bilateral cooperation example, Estonia has
provided Georgia more than 2,4M to improve entrepreneurial
activity and education access, which has a direct effect in the
countrys poverty rate.
UNICEF has played a key role in this area. As a matter of fact,
Open Estonia and UNICEF Estonia are the principal promoters of a
network which joins and coordinates representatives from the
European Anti-Poverty Network Estonia (EAPN Estonia) and other
NGOs working in this area. This networks duty is to concentrate
these efforts in Estonias households which are most affected by
poverty.
A lot of work has been done to improve the situation, but we are
conscious that it is not enough. With the experience gained from our
previous efforts we propose to move even further with these two
possible solutions, which are focused on solving several different subfactors of poverty present in Estonia, but also shared among many
other countries:
Firstly, for the purpose of eradicating poverty, we recommend an
international agreement which would reduce unemployment in an
environmentally sustainable way, as we consider job creation one of
the main solutions to this problem. To tackle the issue of the creation
of jobs, we believe in the establishment of businesses. So to
encourage multinationals to set up their subsidiaries in developing
countries we request the governments participation by granting a tax
reduction in the benefits of these companies.
Secondly, regarding corruption and bad governance as one
of the main factors leading to extreme poverty, we recommend the
creation of a stricter commission to watch over and report corruption
to international authorities. The duty of this international commission,
would consist of people with financial and political knowledge from
developed countries watching over the performance of the
governments. Any case of corruption with financial implications would
be made public.
All things considered, although poverty has been reduced
considerably there are still far too many people affected by it. A clear
demonstration would be that 22.000 children die everyday due to

their economic struggles. This situation is unacceptable. While the

battle against world poverty is difficult to win, we have never been in
a better position to fight it. With help from all of us, solving poverty
could stop being a dream and become a reality. This is the moment.
This is our moment.