World hunger is one of major topics within the UN. As it is included in the Millenium Development Goals (MDG), the UN   is working on that issue constantly. In the past 30 years, despite many resolutions or/and  UN programms such as the World Food Programe (WFP), malnutrition in LEDCs has become even worse.

As there are multiple reasons for this issue, you definitely need to look what particular reason affects your country to represent it properly and work out the right resolution.

The main reason is possibly the "African land lease". African governments often decide to lease their land to mostly western investors in order to raise the countrys income.

This sounds good in the first place, but as the mostly western countries use the agricultural land for cultivating crops to make biofuels, the population in this countries does not have enough land to nourish themselves.

Private investors from the EU for instance are cultivating, in a huge part of Sierra Leone cash crops to produce Biofuels. The land the EU is using can not be used by local farmers, which causes a local hunger crisis, as a result.

Other reasons can be found in the stock markets. In 2008 and yet again wheat and other crops are hoarded by speculators of the stock markets. Thus even if wheat is produced in areas of starvation it is worth more when its hoarded, which also can lead into a hunger crisis.

Addtionally there is the WTO and the IMF. As the IMF gives credits to most of the countries we are talking about, these countries have to apply to the "SAP", which includes they have to tear down trade barriers. These barriers in this particular case are import duties, which brings the EU to ship their food overproduction to African countries and sell it their for a very little price. In fact so little, the products of local famers are more expensive,then the EU products.

Therefore the people will buy the cheaper European crops. As most of the population in LEDCs are farmers, they cannot sell their own products and get poor and co-dependent of developing aid and soon will lack of money to employ their fields.

Eventually Desertification plays a big role. In many areas of starvation its simply impossible to cultivate crops as they lack of water.

Links below should give a more detailed explaination of what I briefly summed up above.

I also recommend you the CIA world factbook for further research.

Links:

www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/business/global/12food.html 

www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/27/how_goldman_sachs_created_the_food_crisis;

www.i-sis.org.uk/financingWorldHunger.php 

www.reuters.com/article/2008/05/07/us-food-idUSMAN14118020080507 

http://www.wfp.org/hunger

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Percentage_population_undernourished_world_map.PNG

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/GlobalTrade_wheat_coarse_grain_soy_2008_usda.png

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/FAO_food-price-index_1990-2011.png

farmlandgrab.org

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/globalfoodcrisis/

www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/opinion/25fri2.html

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/20/food-farming

www.worldbank.org/foodcrisis/  

www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/10/the_great_food_crisis_of_2011 

Please prepare a position paper and a draft resolution.

Looking forward to seeing you by the end of May.

 

 

Research Report: Trade with Rare Earth Elements as the economical Weapon of the 21st Century

Trade with rare earth elements hasn’t been a problem in the past, but as the technology advances, especially the electronic and photovoltaic sector, special elements gain more importance.

The trade with rare earth elements on one hand is trade like that of any other good, but on the other it can also be used to exert pressure on other nations. Therefore it is important to consider to what extent the United Nations can justify and have the responsibility to restrict or aide this trade.

Elements such as silicon or indium are used to produce microelectronic parts of computers and other electronic high-tech products. Silicon in fact is the most important product used in the manufacturing process of photovoltaic solar-cells. Although silicon does exist in a lot of places, even in Sand, it can’t always be used for these needs. The need for renewable energies has strongly grown in the past decade, implying the need for photovoltaic solar-cells. If goals like those of the UN Resolution 62/197 (Promotion of new and renewable sources of energy) want to be achieved, then the United Nations should think about regulating the trade to an extent where neither the sovereignty of a nation is infringed, nor that of open market places is.

Photovoltaic technologies aren’t only used in the energy-producing-sector, but also many other technology companies have to rely on these technologies. Besides solar-cars and -boats even solar-plains are built today. It is important to secure the possibility for research institutes to do future research in this sector. Not only MEDCs could profit by measures doing so but also LEDCs which could use their chance to create jobs concerning the production of those new products. Photovoltaic solar-cells today have an efficiency of about 20%. Goals are to create an efficiency of 80% in the future. If this is possible, many nations wouldn’t have to rely on oil and coal and therefore would gain a partly economical independency.

The trade of rare earth metals can be compared with the trade of oil. It is a very speculative trade which ideally relies on the request and supply of the product. The prices of those metals are set at the world market places such as the Wall Street in New York. As it is seen in the trade of oil, prices often get pushed up or down by brokers who speculate on earning money through a cheap buy and then a more expensive sell. Next to these influences also natural disasters and other shocking news such as terroristic attacks will influence the price of rare earth metals. Since many Nations rely on these metals, they offer a great opportunity for criminals to exert power over nations and companies.

Companies that rely on unobstructed trade are companies of the energy-producing and micro-electronically sector. In Europe and America for example Solar World, BASF, Q-Cells, Intel and many more. These companies give a lot of jobs to people in MEDCs, especially in the research sector. As well as to people in LEDCs who produce these products. Next to those directly related jobs many jobs indirectly profit by the production and trade of Rare Earth metals. Even today, though being a newer economical sector, the trade makes up a great part of the world’s economic stability.

Through creating independence from rare earth metals the problem could be solved the best. Independence can only be achieved if there are alternatives to those metals such as indium and silicon. It is the research institutes’ duty to find alternatives. The United Nations should support these institutes in finding alternatives in a way that not only MEDCs profit by this but also LEDCs. This could be done in a financial manner.

Links:

http://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2010-12/rohstoffe-welthandel-ordnung

http://www.undemocracy.com/A-RES-62-197.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indium

http://www.indium.com/

http://geology.com/articles/indium.shtml

 

 

Honourable delegates,

it is my honor to serve as one of the chairs of this years Enviromental Committee . I am 20 years old and will be graduating from Primo-Levi school this year in Berlin.

One last time I have the chance to become a part of this great conference. Unless I participated in several other conferences, BalMUN in Rostock with its unique atmosphere became my favourite. As I have chaired the last years HRC and shared a lot of laughter while doing this, you guys have to follow big footsteps.

I am really hoping for a nice and fun conference, because – lets be honest- this is what MUN is really about ; making new friends; having a great time; enjoying new places like Rostock.

Despite all this, I also want you to be as productive as possible. MUN reaches its "Fun-peak", when you have a heated debate, with a tremendous amount of amendments to discuss. So please be prepared, with draft resolutions and position papers, backround knowledge, and you should be familiar with the most important points and motions of MUN procedure.

I am really really looking foward to seeing you in May.

Kind regards

Marian Willuhn