Editor’s Note: A student at Georgia Institute of Technology, Brady spent part of the summer with GAPW on what turned out to be a completely virtual internship. While not what he had hoped for, and not what we hoped for him, Brady was a diligent follower of summer UN processes, asking good questions while not allowing the steep learning curve which the UN often presents to newcomers deter him from engaging with complex issues in the Security Council and, especially, in the ECOSOC High-Level Political Forum.
When signing up for an opportunity with GAPW at the end of May, I was very anxious at first, as I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I expected a lot of dialogue on subjects that I knew very little about, people talking too fast for me to understand – as New York has a reputation for being all hustle and bustle, and meetings consisting of solely legal or technical jargon that I would not know how to digest.
For the first few days, I was lost and thought everyone was repeating each other. So much was going on with the High-Level Political Forum — my very first UN engagement — that it was hard to keep all of the countries and their agendas straight, especially for someone who has no prior experiences with these countries. However, once I began to look in on more meetings and learned about some of the counties’ histories, the subtleties made more sense, and I could then fully digest what the delegations were discussing.
Of the meetings I attended, my favorite ones discussed climate change, hunger, and the crisis in Myanmar. While these topics are interesting to me in general, I feel like these were the best presentations: not only because of the material, but because of the speakers themselves. They rallied their respective audiences by talking with us instead of to us. For the food security sessions, Mr. David Beasley was by far the most compelling speaker. He was able to rally the room behind what he said because of his level of enthusiasm which most other speakers did not seem to have. Another speaker I enjoyed was a diplomat from Colombia who talked about her experiences with the cartels there. She brought in very personal details and accounts of how her life changed due to the violence from the drug trade. By being vulnerable like that, she was able to form an emotional connection with people in the meeting, which made what she had to say so much more impactful. In my opinion, finding speakers like this is singlehandedly the most important thing the UN can do to garner support from people in the wider world.
While there have been many things that I thought the UN did well, there are a few things I thought could have been improved upon. One of which is the UN’s stated goal for youth involvement. While the UN encourages youth involvement, they seem to talk more about this than acting on it. Sure, there were two days during my internship when youth leaders held meetings, but besides that, there was not much evidence of youth participation. Additionally, these meetings simply highlighted the work already done by young adults rather than a discussion with young adults about what they want to see done now, what they are eager to do now. So, to the UN, include more young adults in your discussions instead of just highlighting how we have been trying to change the world. This is our future at stake, so it would be proper if we had a more substantial influence on what happens to it going forward, the priorities that will shape the future.
To close, I want to talk about one more concern I have witnessed from the meetings. Delegations are, to put it frankly, moving too slowly. While I understand treaties and resolutions take time to complete, action must occur rapidly when our future is at risk. Climate change won’t slow because delegations need time to talk about the wording of resolutions. Rising hunger rates won’t slow because delegations need time to talk about wording. Terrorist organizations won’t slow their advances because delegations need time to talk about wording. If we want our future to be peaceful and equitable for all, we must demand that delegations work more swiftly to actively and practically address looming crises. Because on matters such as climate change we will soon pass a tipping point, and then no resolution will be able to stop what is now well in motion.
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