PAN AMERICAN SCHOOL 10TH ANNUAL MODEL UNITED NATIONS

GENERAL ASSEMBLY 0

PAN AMERICAN SCHOOL 10TH ANNUAL MODEL UNITED NATIONS February 23 rd, 24 th, and 25 th Natalia Tellez Secretary General Jose Luis Herrera Director General Miranda Silva Crisis Director Valeria Villafranca Subsecretary of Commitees Rafael Paredes Chief of Crisis Paola Froto Subsecretary of Affairs Dear Delegates, Welcome to PASMUN 2017! We are honored to have you participate at our 10th Annual Model United Nations. Our secretariat, chairs and staff have been working to give you one of the best simulations you will ever experience. During these three days you will have the opportunity to deal with international issues which will improve your skills, flourish your leadership, will promote teamwork and will make you have a different way of viewing the world we live in. You will also get to know new people, since this is an event created by students for students. We encourage you to challenge your abilities in all the possible ways before, during and after the event. We hope you give your best in this simulation and take the most advantage of it. This year, since we still have faith in humanity, we are trying to inspire you in order for you to inspire others to be the change! We are beyond excited to have you in our event! Sincerely, Pablo Navarro Subsecretary of Technology 1 Natalia Tellez Secretary General

Committee: General Assembly Director: Fátima Cruz Moderator: Rebeca Ponce Topic: The Achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 I. Committee Background: The General Assembly is the main deliberative body of the United Nations. The GA approves the admission of new UN members and elects members to other UN organs. Over the years, it has become the primary platform for the dialogue between developed and developing states. Among its duties are: Reviewing reports from the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council; Making recommendations on international political cooperation; Developing and systematizing international collaboration in economic, social, cultural, educational, and health fields; Counseling and encouraging peaceful settlement of hostile situations amongst nations; and Appointing the Secretary-General in conjunction with the Security Council and electing non-permanent members of the Security Council, judges of the International Court of Justice, and members of the Economic and Social Council. All 194 UN member nations have membership and equal voting rights in the General Assembly. The General Assembly sessions commence annually in September with two weeks of open debate in which many world leaders take the opportunity to address the body directly. The session typically suspends in late December and reconvenes as needed throughout the following year. The General Assembly can also be called into emergency and special session at the request of the UN Security Council or a majority of Member States. The General Assembly is headed by a President who is elected prior to the opening session each year. The current President of the General Assembly is Miguel d Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua. Although General Assembly resolutions are non-binding on member states, they often have a dramatic and lasting effect. Perhaps the most famous General Assembly Declaration is the Universal Declaration of Human 2

Rights. Passed in 1948, largely due to the efforts of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, this document has become the guidebook for human rights. Another important action included the United for Peace Resolution passed in 1950 that allowed for police action to protect South Korea from North Korean aggression. More recently, the General Assembly adopted a Millennium Development Declaration calling for improvements in poverty, illiteracy, health, and the environment by 2015. In 2005, the General Assembly passed a resolution for comprehensive reform to make the organization more efficient, transparent, and accountable. II. Statement of the problem: The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which range from halving extreme poverty rates to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 form a blueprint agreed to by all the world s countries and all the world s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world s poorest. The UN is also working with governments, civil society and other partners to build on the momentum generated by the MDGs and carry on with an ambitious post- 2015 development agenda. As the MDGs era comes to a conclusion with the end of the year, 2016 ushers in the official launch of the bold and transformative 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by world leaders last September at the United Nations. The new Agenda calls on countries to begin efforts to achieve 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the next 15 years. The seventeen Sustainable Development Goals are our shared vision of humanity and a social contract between the world's leaders and the people, said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. They are a to-do list for people and planet, and a blueprint for success. 3

The SDGs build on the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and aim to go further to end all forms of poverty. The new Goals are unique in that they call for action by all countries, poor, rich and middle-income to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-inhand with strategies that build economic growth and addresses a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection. While the SDGs are not legally binding, governments are expected to take ownership and establish national frameworks for the achievement of the 17 Goals. Countries have the primary responsibility for follow-up and review of the progress made in implementing the Goals, which will require quality, accessible and timely data collection. Regional follow-up and review will be based on national-level analyses and contribute to follow-up and review at the global level. Building on the success and momentum of the MDGs, the new global goals cover more ground, with ambitions to address inequalities, economic growth, decent jobs, cities and human settlements, industrialization, oceans, ecosystems, energy, climate change, sustainable consumption and production, peace and justice. The new Goals are universal and apply to all countries, whereas the MDGs were intended for action in developing countries only. The new Goals recognize that tackling climate change is essential for sustainable development and poverty eradication. SDG 13 aims to promote urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. Unlike the MDGs, these new global goals are universal in nature, applying to all countries, not just developing ones as much to Cameroon and Costa Rica, as Canada. Importantly, the universal agenda is for all people. While the success of the MDGs was understood in terms of overall progress, the SDGs have a significant focus on leaving no one behind. For Middle East countries, this will mean tackling the ongoing marginalization and inequalities faced by minority groups in society, and in particular, indigenous populations. As one study 4

examining how the SDGs could be applied to all countries shows, indigenous peoples fall behind in terms of their experience of economic, social and environmental well-being when compared to the rest of the population. Women, immigrant populations, individuals with disabilities and others including refugees, as the Syrian crisis has shown also continue to face discrimination and inequality in society. Realizing the SDGs for all people will be no easy feat. It will mean acknowledging highly political realities, tackling structural and systemic inequalities, and working across sectors with representatives of different national and international groups to find sustainable solutions to deep-rooted challenges. III. Topic Information A) History of the topic The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the result from the political commitments made by leaders to tackle poverty, illiteracy and disease at the dawn of the new millennium. At the historic Millennium Summit in September 2000, the largest gathering of world leaders at the time, United Nations (UN) Member States reaffirmed their commitment to ensure the full realization of human rights in the Millennium Declaration. Based on these solemn promises, they agreed to fight together against poverty, hunger, gender inequality, environmental degradation, and killer diseases such as malaria and HIV, while improving access to education, health care and clean water, all by 2015. The MDGs have been pursued largely in isolation from the human rights commitments in the original Millennium Declaration. Some voices have criticized the MDGs themselves, questioning whether human rights standards have been lowered and sufficient attention has been paid to women and marginalized groups and national and global power inequities. But at the same time, the progress in those 15 years has been tremendous. Hunger has been cut in half. Extreme poverty is down nearly by half. More kids are going to school and fewer are dying. Now these countries want to build on the many successes of the past 15 years, and go further. The new set of goals, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), aims to end poverty and hunger by 2030. 5

World leaders, recognizing the connection between people and planet, have set goals for the land, the oceans and the waterways. The world is also better connected now than it was in 2000, and is building a consensus about the future we want. That future is one where everybody has enough food, and can work, and where living on less than $1.25 a day is a thing of the past. B) Current Issues The targets set in 2005 on poverty, education, women's rights, child mortality, maternal health, the spread of HIV, the environment and aid were always ambitious. Thanks to the global recession, and complacency from many of the 189 countries that signed up, the interim targets that were set are in many instances still far from being met, which means that progress may slip by as much as a decade. Progress has been even slower for women, who continue to bear the brunt of poverty and its far-reaching effects, according to new research by Plan International and Africa Progress Panel. Girls are still much more likely to die before the age of five than boys due to largely preventable diseases such as malaria and TB. According to Plan, the SDG tracking system ignores the plight of girls, so the particular impact of poverty on them goes unrecorded. Many rich nations that pledged aid are reneging on their promises, with a knock-on effect on the other seven targets. Overall donations in 2010 are estimated at $108bn, a shortfall of $18bn against commitments made in 2005. Experts argue that lackluster progress is not wholly due to economics. The seventh millennium goal, to ensure environmental stability, has failed so far as it requires fundamental social change. While there has been progress on a global scale for some of the targets, the picture is much bleaker on a regional scale. Sub-Saharan Africa has not yet met any of the MDG targets, neither has South Asia, West Asia or Central Asia. Fifteen targets have not been met by any region. On the positive side, East Asia has met three targets. One shining example is Nepal; Has Nepal has reported it is on track to achieve the most MDGs, including targets on poverty and hunger, 6

universal primary education, gender equality and women's empowerment, child mortality and maternal health. C) United Nations Actions As the specialized agency of the United Nations focusing on Development, UNDP has a mandate of supporting countries in their development path, and coordinating the UN System at the country level. In this capacity, the UN Secretary General requested that UNDP be the MDG Scorekeeper, in addition to UNDP's ongoing programmatic work in accomplishing the MDGs. The "Road map towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration" notes that UNDP will coordinate the reporting on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals at the country level. As the scorekeeper, UNDP supports the implementation of the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) Core Strategy (PDF), including: Coordinating and providing financial support for the preparation of MDG country monitoring reports Forging closer collaboration within UN Country Teams on policy advocacy, while promoting a strong response to national MDG priorities through United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAFs) and Country Programmes. UNDP, in collaboration with the UNDG and the Inter Agency Expert Group (IAEG) on Targets and Indicators, has been providing technical and financial support to help countries report progress on their national MDG targets, and developing the MDG National Report Guidelines, which are updated every few years to reflect emerging development priorities and agendas. IV. Conclusion 7

We believe that the MDGs have been primordial to help solve the main problems that affect countries in multiple ways. Certainly, it has brought positive results worldwide, but it hasn't been completely solved. These are not issues that can be solved that simply, but we should all focus on trying to reinforce and achieve the SDGs globally. For this, all counties must cooperate equally and provide a little bit of their help, and perhaps, it won't be an illusion to create peace around the world. Most of the MDGs problems have been decreased or even solved, but we must focus on those that have not yet, been solved and for this, we are proposing the following solutions that can be implemented to reinforce and achieve the reinforcement of the SDGs: Include the Excluded. Tackling structural and systematic inequalities for the implementation of SDGs on actions for the population equally, since immigrants are falling behind as facing discrimination and inequality in most countries societies. Prioritize Women's Rights in Targets. A human rights-based approach meaning ensuring that the MDG is sufficiently focused on the rights of women, since gender inequality has risen and it has been an MDG goal that hasn't been improved that much over the last years. The UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) have called for gender equality to be crosscutting for all MDGs. Many non-governmental organizations and women's organizations have come up with thoughtful suggestions on operating this; Development of new antibiotics and treatments, among other measures to fight diseases. As a community, it's primordial to identify the key barriers to progress and find solutions for addressing issues such as domestic resources, widening the donor base, greater efficiency as well as new approaches where they are needed. Raise awareness of MDGs and advocate for countries and sub-national regions to adopt and adapt MDGs; Provide leadership and UN coordination to develop capacity in countries to assess what is needed to achieve the MDGs, to conceptualize policies and to design strategies and plans. For this purpose, UNDP organizes consultations 8

and training, conducts research, develops planning and information management tools; Provide hand-on support to countries to scale up implementation of initiatives to achieve the MDGs, in areas such as procurement, human resources and financial management; Assist countries to report their progress. V. Essential Questions 1. Which MDGs have been achieved in your country? 2. Why haven't the SDGs been achieved? 3. How is the United Nations contributing with your country to solve this issue? 4. What does your delegation think should be done in order to achieve them? 5. What actions is your delegation doing to achieve the MDGs? 6. What have the SDGs accomplished? 7. How are the SDGs and MDGs different? 8. When was this issue detected in your country? VI. Bibliography United Nations Foundation, 2012. What We Do: The General Assembly ; Recovered from http://www.unfoundation.org/what-we-do/issues/unitednations/the-general-%20assembly.html United Nations Development Programme, 2015. World leaders adopt Sustainable Development Goals ; Retrieved from http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2015/09/2 4/undp-welcomes-adoption-of-sustainable-development-goals-by-worldleaders.html United Nations SDGs Knowledge Platform, 2016. Sustainable Development Goals. Recovered from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300 9

United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 2015. The Millennium Development Goals and Human Rights. Recovered from http://www.unkampagne.de/fileadmin/downloads/news3/final_human_rights_and _mdgs_brochure.pdf United To Combat Tropical Diseases, 2016. Reaching the Unreached. Recovered from http://unitingtocombatntds.org/report/fourth-report-reachingunreached United Nations MDGs Reinforcement, 2016. Sustainable Development Goals Global Report. Recovered from http://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2016/the%20sustainable%20development%20 Goals%20Report%202016.pdf United Nations SDGs Knowledge Platform, 2016. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Recovered from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld United Nations SDGs: 17 Goals to Transform Our World, 2016. The Sustainable Development Agenda. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/ United Nations Development Programme, 2015. Millennium Development Goals. Recovered from http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sdgoverview/mdg_goals.html World Health Organization, 2015. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Retrieved from http://www.who.int/topics/sustainable-development-goals/en/ 10