How to prepare for a Model UN conference

Every conference publishes a background guide for each committee: the topic, its history, the questions the committee is expected to answer, and usually a bloc map of where countries stand. Chairs write it, chairs score against it, and delegates who quote it in speeches sound prepared. Read it once for the shape of the topic, then again with a pen, marking every question the guide poses, because those questions are the outline of your position paper.

If the guide is late or thin, the topic name plus the committee name (for example, “UNHRC, access to education in conflict zones”) is enough to start the research step. Do not wait.

You are not researching the topic in general. You are researching what your assigned country has said, signed, voted for, and paid for on this topic, and what it wants next. That distinction is what separates a delegate who can hold a position under pressure from one who improvises. Aim to be able to say each of these in one sentence: your country’s stance, one law or program at home, one treaty or UN resolution it supported or opposed, one number (funding, casualties, enrollment, emissions) that makes the problem concrete, and the two or three countries most likely to agree with you.

The country research worksheet is a one-page profile that tells you where each answer lives, from basic identity facts to UN voting records. Fill it in first; everything after this step is written from it.

A position paper is one page, three sections: the background of the problem as your country sees it, your country’s past actions and policy, and the solutions your country will propose in committee. Most conferences require it, many score it, and some give a separate award for it. Chairs read dozens, so a paper with a specific law, a specific vote, and a specific proposal stands out immediately; a paper that could have been written by any country is read as a placeholder.

Draft it in the position paper template, which carries the standard structure, the formatting spec most conferences use, and a pre-submission checklist. If you want to see the difference between a weak and a strong paper on the same topic, the position paper guide annotates both side by side.

Your first speech in committee is usually 60 to 90 seconds on the speakers’ list. It has three jobs: a hook that makes the room look up, your country’s policy in one or two sentences, and a call to action that tells other delegates what you want them to do (join a bloc, support a clause, meet you in the unmoderated caucus). Write the call to action first, then the policy, then the hook.

Use the opening speech planner for the frame and word budgets, and read the worked speech examples for 30, 60, and 90-second versions. Then rehearse standing up, out loud, against a timer, at least five times. Delegates lose more points to running over time and reading from the page than to anything they say.

Prepare a second, shorter speech too: a 30-second version of the same position you can give in a moderated caucus. Chairs notice delegates who speak repeatedly with fresh content.

You do not need the full rulebook. You need to recognize the flow of debate (roll call, setting the agenda, the speakers’ list, moderated and unmoderated caucuses, drafting, amendments, voting) and be able to make about a dozen motions and points in the right wording. The one to drill is the moderated caucus, phrased completely: “Motion for a moderated caucus of ten minutes with a speaking time of forty-five seconds on the topic of funding mechanisms.” A motion missing any of those parts gets ruled out of order, and that is the most common way a beginner’s first contribution dies.

Print the points and motions cheat sheet and keep it on the desk in committee; nobody will mind. For the why behind each rule, the rules of procedure explainer walks the whole flow in plain English.

Resolutions get written in committee, not before, but the delegates who lead the writing arrive with two or three operative clauses already drafted: each with an actor, a funder, and a mechanism. Draft yours in the resolution template using phrases from the clause phrase bank, and read the annotated resolution once so you know what a finished draft looks like.

Then write down your likely bloc from step 2, and one thing you are willing to trade. In the first unmoderated caucus, find those countries by name, propose one of your clauses, and ask what theirs are. That is bloc-building; it is not complicated, but delegates who have not decided in advance who to talk to spend the caucus standing at the edge of the room.

If your committee is a crisis committee, the preparation is different in kind: portfolio powers, crisis notes, and directives instead of a single resolution. Read crisis committees explained before anything else.

The night before: print the position paper, the country worksheet, the cheat sheet, and your speech; pack a placard-friendly folder, pens, a water bottle, and business-casual or Western business attire per the conference dress code; charge your laptop, and check the committee room and start time. Then stop. A delegate who slept beats a delegate who memorized one more statistic.

The first conference checklist is the printable version of this step, and the two-week first-conference plan lays out the whole calendar day by day.

Get on the speakers’ list in the first ten minutes; the earlier you speak, the more delegates hear your position before blocs settle. Make one clean motion in the first session so the chair knows your name. In every unmoderated caucus, go to the people you planned to find. Take notes on who said what, because the delegate who can say “as Brazil noted earlier” is doing the chair’s job for them, and chairs reward it.

Awards are decided across the whole conference, not by one speech. If you want to know exactly what chairs track, read how Model UN awards work. If this is a first conference, the goal is simpler: speak three times, contribute one clause to a draft, and leave knowing what you would do differently. That is a good first conference.

Send this page to the whole delegation two weeks out and run the steps as club meetings: research and position papers in week one, speeches and procedure in week two, a practice simulation before you travel. The club starter kit has eight meeting plans that end in exactly that simulation, the chairing script lets a student or advisor run it, and the scoring rubric gives you a way to score it the way a dais would. If you would rather have a coach run the preparation for your club, we set up dedicated sections for school groups; ask through the contact page.