Simulating a UN Session in Search of Resolutions and Soft Skills
"It's quite similar to the real experience", says Victor Henckel von Donnersmarck, guest lecturer who chairs the simulation. He knows. A Bocconi graduate with a master's degree in Public Management at SDA, he has been a consultant to international organizations in Bonn and Geneva. He's talking about what happens in classroom 202, where the spokespersons for each delegation take the floor to make their opening statements while reading from sheets of paper, laptops or tablets. The delegates of other groups have lively discussions about what they're hearing and then raise their nameplate to reply. A countdown on the whiteboard shows the time remaining to the end of each speech: they have ninety seconds, not one more.
GIOMUN 2016 is the academic simulation of an UN plenary session and it took place Friday, 29 April. Ninety students of the MSc in Government and International Organizations were involved. A month and a half ago they were divided into twenty teams, each representing a different country, from the US to Nigeria. They were asked to carefully retrace their country's stance towards health emergencies' management and to devise a model of Public-Private Partnerships in the World Health Organization response framework, as recommended in January 2016 by the advisory group set up by the WHO to provide guidance on the organization's reform.
The twenty delegations wrote their position papers and spent most of last Friday discussing how to deal effectively with health emergencies created by viruses such as Ebola and Zika, trying to promote at the same time their national interest. In the afternoon, they drafted and voted a statement.
"The most difficult thing was to build a strong knowledge of the countries", says Luisa Somaini, a first-timer at a Model United Nations who played the part of a representative for the United Kingdom. "Expertise is the only way to defend your country's stance when it's needed". Eugenio Coppola, a representative for Guinea, found it difficult to adapt to diplomacy techniques: "I've learned that you must be cautious when it comes to asserting your national interest: you should never be too direct. The interests at stake are many and conflicting, the process that leads to the best solution is long and demanding".
The simulation accounts for 20% of the final assessment. Both the position paper and the negotiation in the classroom are evaluated. Students are engaged in active learning and put to test relational and negotiating skills that aren't stimulated in traditional lectures. "They learn that in diplomacy there is no single solution to the problems", Henckel von Donnersmarck says. "They become familiar with the democratic practice of compromise".
GIOMUN improves soft skills, says Monica Otto, the coordinator of the simulation. "These same skills will be invaluable in any workplace: international organizations, local governments, private companies that interact with the public. That's why I urge students to to face the fray, stand and talk: it's the chance to train one's skills in a protected environment. It's a gym that prepares them for working life".