Models for youth leadership

With the New Year, the eighth UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has just stepped down, being replaced by the former Portuguese Premier Antonio Guterres. The top diplomat in the world has his focus on peace and sustainable development, as stated in his inaugural address. As the former head of the UNHCR, he is familiar with refugee problems, and that should be a positive for Rwanda. In his recent Newsweek magazine op-ed, he articulated a number of initiatives that he is planning to implement. Many of these ideas would resonate well with Rwanda as similar programs have been ongoing here for quite some time. They include coherence and consistency in maintaining peace, building a culture of accountability and performance within a reduced bureaucracy, and gender parity. On the top page of the UN’s website reads the mission statement: “We want the world our children inherit to be defined by the values enshrined in the UN Charter: peace, justice, respect, human rights, tolerance and solidarity”. The principle way to create a better world is through instilling and developing these values in the children of the future through education. The goals of higher education may vary, but one of the most important is to have students develop social skills that promote cooperative and collaborative problem solving. One way to motivate students to develop such critical thinking skills is by giving them chances to apply them in real-world situations. This often takes place in scientific and technical disciplines in in the form of experiments and practical simulations, and technical competitions such as robot battles and solar car races. But such simulations take place in the realm of the political and social sciences, as well. One popular simulation of real life is the Model United Nations (MUN) which provides over 400,000 students worldwide the opportunity to learn from one another in dealing with real-world issues of international diplomacy in a safe experimental space. An extremely important area of diplomacy is accomplishing the goals that are set out for the diplomat, and find the means to achieve these goals. Putting themselves in the (simulated) roles of world leaders allows participants to have a much clearer understanding of the dynamics of international affairs and geopolitics. The precursor to the Model UN was started in the 1920’s and based on the old League of Nations Model, and was first established in a university setting in 1949. It takes place throughout the world, but in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is limited to South Africa and Kenya. It will be coming soon to Rwanda and this is another sign that the country continues to move forward and has arrived on the international scene. MUN teaches participants about subjects such as diplomacy, international relations, and the workings of the UN. It reinforces skills such as researching, public speaking, debating, writing and critical thinking, and (as it is traditionally held in English) native and foreign language skills. In some places it starts as young as middle school and high school, but is most commonly held at the university level. Students get the opportunity to consider real-world situations while playing the role of real diplomats which helps build empathy towards other cultures: going deeper into issues than simply reading and studying about the issues in a classroom. This is a fascinating exercise for the students due to the spirt of the UN and the authentic treatment of real-world issues. According to Nina Nomura, student leader at the Kobe City University of Foreign Studies in Japan who is working to bring MUN to Rwanda, the MUN gives students the opportunity to learn about compromise and respect. What is often thought of as ‘diplomacy’s dirty secret’ is that countries almost never get what they initially want; rather they end up compromising and then reframing the compromise into something that resembles what they initially sought. This is one of the biggest reasons there is great interest in international relations circles in respect to President-elect Trump and his history of reframing of anything, including failures, into success. For many of the delegates it is also a chance to learn that geopolitics really have the ‘geo’ (geography and geology) as major contributing factors to the real-world situations. This along with the importance of the power that is involved in influencing decisions that are made and the impositions of will upon others (or, conversely the inability to do so). As humans are social beings, study after study has shown that the best type of learning occurs when there are a number of people interacting, and working together. This peer pressure is fundamental to gaining knowledge in social settings such as this. The main areas of problem solving for the UN continue to be environment, health, education, security and human rights. The participants often break into smaller committees (just as the UN itself does) within the various issues to work together to resolve them. The importance of this organization has been recognized by the UN itself with even the outgoing Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon participating actively in the MUN. Professor Todd Thorpe, faculty-level MUN coordinator at Kindai University, Japan, explains that students “have opportunities to improve in so many different areas through a variety of unique learning opportunities. Whether students participate as a Country Delegate, Chairperson, or in one of our exciting journalism roles, they all gain valuable skills that will help them cope with the demands of the future.” As Rwanda continues to show leadership within the region and the entire world, platforms such as the UN (as well as the AU, EAC among others) will continue to rely on this country’s participation. Therefore, support in training our youth for future leadership roles within this area through programmes like the MUN has never been more important. The writer is a Canadian scholar who has conducted regular visits to Rwanda and has given talks at the University of Rwanda and at the Kigali Independent University. Currently, he is an associate professor at Kobe Gakuin University in Japan

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Models for youth leadership