What is the United Nations?

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t know much about the United Nations, we’re here to help. The basic premise of the organization is best explained by the United Nations themselves:

The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 after the Second World War by 51 countries committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.

The UN has 4 main purposes:
-To keep peace throughout the world;
-To develop friendly relations among nations;
-To help nations work together to improve the lives of poor people, to conquer hunger, disease and illiteracy, and to encourage respect for each other’s rights and freedoms;
-To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations to achieve these goals.

Due to its unique international character, and the powers vested in its founding Charter, the Organization can take action on a wide range of issues, and provide a forum for its 192 Member States to express their views, through the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and other bodies and committees.

The work of the United Nations reaches every corner of the globe. Although best known for peacekeeping, peacebuilding, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance, there are many other ways the United Nations and its System (specialized agencies, funds and programmes) affect our lives and make the world a better place. The Organization works on a broad range of fundamental issues, from sustainable development, environment and refugees protection, disaster relief, counter terrorism, disarmament and non-proliferation, to promoting democracy, human rights, gender equality and the advancement of women, governance, economic and social development and international health, clearing landmines, expanding food production, and more, in order to achieve its goals and coordinate efforts for a safer world for this and future generations.

Model United Nations is an organization that seeks to simulate the proceedings of the United Nations in order to encourage discourse and educate its participants. It’s also a lot of fun. These simulations take place at conferences, which are held in high school and college divisions. More specifically, delegates take the roles of committee members of the United Nations as they face either preplanned topics, or unpredictable crises. We at UCLA MUN host both a high school and college level conference.

This training presentation will give you a better sense of how Model UN operates, specifically at our conferences:
MUN Training Presentation (PDF)

Additional Resources to learn more about the UN, and about Model UN:
The United Nations
United Nations Wikipedia
Model UN Wikipedia
Best Delegate