High School Students to Practice Hands-on Diplomacy at SFS-Qatar’s Third Annual Model United Nations Conference
On Thursday, January 24, more than 325 high school students from around the world will come together in Doha, Qatar, to discuss current international issues in a three-day international UN simulation. They will be the participants in the third annual Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Qatar) Model United Nations Conference, which offers select high school students the opportunity to build practical experience in international diplomacy.
During the Model United Nations (MUN), students assume the roles of member countries on international governing bodies such as the UN Security Council, the African Union, NATO and the Arab League. Participants must study the foreign policy of the country they are representing in order to understand and accurately represent the views of their member nation. This allows students from local, regional and international high schools to discuss pressing political and social issues of global concern. “The whole idea behind organizing the MUN conference is to give students a hands-on experience in diplomacy,” said Kathryn King, the conference’s coordinator. According to Mehran Kamrava, the Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies at Georgetown, it is valuable for students to engage with such complex matters. “The issues these students are discussing are the same issues that are confronting our governments’ leaders today,” Kamrava said. “As future world leaders, it is important for them to learn that it is possible for common solutions to be found among people of different backgrounds.”
Starting on Thursday, the delegates from 22 nations will have the chance to experience life as an international diplomat, and to meet and mingle with the diplomatic community in Doha, as well as issue experts from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.
Students will discuss a variety of topics, including: Iran’s place on the international stage, US policy on torture and extraordinary rendition, the Israeli/Palestine Peace Process, AIDS as a global health crisis, governmental responses to global warming, and NATO’s mission in Afghanistan.
The Opening Ceremonies of the conference will feature career diplomat Andrew Natsios, the former director of USAID, and most recently, the US Special Envoy to Darfur. In both of these positions, Natsios played a key role in U.S. efforts to resolve the ongoing conflict in Darfur. In his speech, Natsios will share his experiences as an international diplomat and discuss the importance of international systems, such as the UN, in providing support to impoverished people around the world. The Model United Nations conference is organized annually by the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), a center located on Georgetown’s Qatar campus that is dedicated to research and outreach to the local and regional community. The Center sponsors major studies of regional and international issues, including international relations, political economy and domestic politics of the Gulf. Beginning in Fall 2008, the Center will sponsor the research of a postdoctoral fellow and a visiting scholar working on Gulf-related issues. The Center recently published a research paper on the plight of Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan. In April, CIRS will play host to an international conference entitled Innovation in Islam.