What is a Policy?
A policy is a course of action proposed, or adopted, by a government, party, business, or individual. Your policies are a Call to Action telling the UN officials, who get the resolution, what to do.
You want your MUN policy to be clear, concise, and SMART.
The SMART MUN Policy
SMART is an acronym to describe the criteria needed to set policy goals.
Specific – Target a specific area for improvement in your policy.
Measurable – Suggest an indicator of progress once the policy is in place.
Actionable– Specify what action this policy will do.
Realistic – Given available resources and committee mandate, ensure your proposed policy can realistically be attained.
Timely – Specify when the result(s) from your proposed policy can be achieved, or when to revisit.
Example of Proposal
Country: Angola
Committee: The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
Topic: Improving Access to Clean Water
Angola advocates for a UN-sanctioned policy that gives permission to dry developing countries to make generic replicas of their patented chemicals at a fraction of the cost to achieve water independence. An example of these technologies belongs to German rainfall enhancement leader WeatherTec Services GmbH. WeatherTecs cutting edge technologies to improve water access are cheaper than many of their competitors but the operating costs start at 11 – 15 million Euros a year. Angola does not believe the United Nations should subsidize the cost of the chemicals, as the subsidy is a temporary solution and it would take funds from other important programs while leaving the corporations with the same level of control. Today, aside from South Africa, none of us can afford cloud seeding. We can cloud seed on our own if freed from the shackles of patent laws that benefit the rich. Dupot made net sales of $62.5B in 2017, by charging prices which the poorer dry countries could never afford. The UN should allow the relevant member states to locally produce WeatherTecs technologies so we can join the ranks of self-sufficient nations who can provide for themselves the basic water needs to survive.
The PReP Formula for Successful Position Papers
PReP stands for Position, Relation, extra & Proposal, which are the essential parts of every position paper. PReP will help you remember the formula.
Position – Your view / interpretation of the issue being discussed. (Paragraph 1)
Relation – Your connection to the topic being discussed. (Paragraph 2)
extra – The optional 4th paragraph which can contain extra information your feel is critical to your case, but doesn’t naturally fit into one of the other three paragraphs. This paragraph still comes before the one containing your policies.
Proposal – The practical policies you would want to see in the resolution. (Paragraph 3)
The PReP Strategy
Tool tip
With the Proposal (paragraph 3), you solve the issue shown in your Position (paragraph 1) with the tools and relevance you set up in your Relation (paragraph 2). (The examples used in paragraph 2 should, preferably, also show the policy margins of your country).
The policy outlined in the final section of the Position Paper should show ideas that address the issues outlined in your position associated with the committee topic (as should have been specified in the first paragraph). This position should be justified by the country’s relation (or guesstimate relation) to the topic (the second paragraph). These should be used to justify the policy proposals you outline in the third paragraph. Each of these paragraphs should try to have as much unique information as possible that can’t be found in the committee study guide (because everyone in the committee should theoretically know that information). Obviously, your paper should have some connection to the main issues of the topic, but if you feel the paper should go in a different direction, that is completely your right.
Topic: Finding the cure for the Zika virus
Country: Greece
While this topic is one that is important, the delegate of Greece can decide that he doesn’t want his country to fund viruses they don’t have and only exists half a world away. In such a case, we would see:
Position (First paragraph): How the global community spends collective money on local issues.
Relation (Second paragraph): How Greece doesn’t have the money to spend and how it has local diseases and problems at home.
Extra (Fourth Optional Paragraph): Optional paragraph could include data on regional diseases that broke out in neighboring countries and remain a viable threat for Greece.
Proposal (Third paragraph): Passing laws that would have localized diseases with body counts that don’t cross the tens of thousands, to be funded by local unions. There can also be a second idea that the World Health Organization divert extra funds instead of countries collectively forking out money.
Pro Tip
There is no set amount of space each section needs to have. Some Position papers need a longer first section while others need double the space for the policy. What is certain is that no paper can miss any of the sections (except the extra part) and each one should be developed to at least 25% of the paper.