A thesis is a coherent and concise paper which should reflect your profound awareness of the problem, ability to analyze relevant sources and present your findings in short, your views on the agenda and your ideas of its possible resolution. The thesis will help us estimate your understanding of the issue and the contribution you will possibly make to its solution.

Make sure you meet the listed requirements:

• The Experts’ Report should serve as a basis for your thesis. Make sure you consult it attentively before writing your thesis.
• Your thesis must be written in formal style and logically structured. It must contain an introduction, a main body, and a conclusion.
• The thesis must be written in English.
• Your thesis must be 400 — 500 words long (an acceptable deviation is 25 words).
• Your personal perspective on the agenda must be stated clearly and justified with the arguments and/or examples.
• Your proposals on how to address the issue must be stated expressly.
• Over the course of the work you must be guided by the documents and resolutions adopted by the UN bodies or other reliable international organizations. The sources of the data and your findings must be mentioned in the form of a footnote.
• Plagiarism is prohibited.

Good luck!

Economic and Social Council Experts,

Polina Slepukhina and Mikhail Kan,

C-MIMUN 2021

 Honourable delegates,

A Position Paper is a clear and concise statement of how the country represented by a delegate addresses the agenda. It differs from the Thesis in the following way: the Thesis must reflect your personal opinion concerning the agenda while the Position Paper should represent the country’s official approach towards the issue. The key objective of the Position Paper is to clarify your country’s stance for other delegates and to put forward the practical proposals to resolve the problem stated in the agenda.

It must be pretty brief and include following substantive items:

• Background of the topic. Why is the issue important to your country? In what way has it affected your nation? What measures has already been taken to resolve the problem? What initiatives have been introduced and what resolutions has your nation supported and why?
• Current state of affairs concerning your country’s policy. What problems is your country faced with or what projects is your country already involved in (in terms of the agenda)? You are to explain why your country needs assistance, or how it can help other states, or what exactly it can contribute to the settlement of the problem.
• Exact measures you country would like to propose. How do you feel the ECOSOC should address this issue? What specific actions would you like to see taken? What solutions would you support in a resolution? What remedies does your country oppose? We would advise to present as specific measures as possible so that they might be considered to be included in the resolution right after you present your position.

Other useful hints:

• Make sure you consult the Experts’ report before writing your Position Paper. It contains lots of useful links and helpful sources.
• Be coherent and concise. Keep in mind that the time for you to present the Position will be limited.
• You should not speak in the first person (“I”), but with the voice of the country you represent. Use the following phrases: “Our Government / Nation”, “The Delegation of ____.”
• You may offer your own ideas on the solution to the problem, but bear in mind that they should not contradict the policies of the state you represent.
• Do not stop preparation after finishing the Position Paper and check regularly before the start of the C-MIMUN if your nation’s stance has remained the same. In case major changes occur, notify the Chairperson and integrate them.
• Wikipedia is not an acceptable source of information.

Position Paper Sample

Committee: Economic and Social Council

Country: Ecuador

Agenda: Strategies for eradicating poverty to achieve sustainable development

Esteemed delegates, ladies and gentlemen, Honorable Chair!

The importance of today’s agenda cannot be overemphasized since poverty seems to have been going hand in hand with humanity throughout its evolving. The UN has been seeking to elaborate possible solutions for this issue for about thirty years, and it is worth mentioning that our joint efforts have not been in vain. Starting off with the adoption of the Agenda 21, we have together enabled more than a billion of people to escape extreme poverty. Still, we ought not to rest on our laurels since there is about a tenth of the world population faced with extreme poverty; there are even more experiencing multidimensional one.

Ecuador used to be a traditional agricultural export-oriented country totally dependent on the fluctuations on the international market. However, most of the income was taken over by the privileged minority, thus reinforcing the process of impoverishment and financial gap broadening. Our country entered the third millennium with about 20% of the population (3 million people) reduced to extreme poverty: devastating numbers for Ecuador. Today, this number is five times less. Considering these facts, we are convinced that our country has something to advise the ECOSOC on.

Our government has assessed its priorities in a right way having concentrated its efforts on the human capital development. Thus shifting from supporting agriculture exclusively to investing in services, namely healthcare and education, Ecuador set in motion the machinery of both financial flows and employment. Another measure that has proved to be effective is radical state-run income re-distribution: we have managed to converge the access to basic services and public goods available for the rich and the poor which is mirrored by the significant decrease in Gini coefficient. By and large, it is essential to understand that political and economic measures together constitute a perfect match aimed at poverty fighting, while implementing only one of these two will end up insufficient.

It should also be noted that, in order to be able to eradicate poverty, state machinery must be transparent and impeccable. Noticeably, countries with the highest poverty rate (for instance, those located in central and west Africa) also find themselves at the end of the list of the Corruption Perceptions Index. That is why, Ecuador suggests  the ECOSOC:

1. enhancing the monitoring of the finance invested in developing countries for the sake of preventing possible misuse of money intended for the poor.
2. that the money invested in emerging countries should be spent on the development of social facilities and infrastructure. These facilities are to provide the locals with extra job opportunities.
3. calling for the governments of the poor countries to take control over the income distribution to provide the citizens with fair revenue-sharing.
4. encouraging the expansion of educational institutions in the countries with high poverty rate and drawing the attention of the youth to studying. Doing so, we will contribute greatly to the economic recovery of the states plunged into crisis.
   1. For these ends developed economies might broaden their educational programs for foreign students under the condition that these students must return to their homeland after graduation in order to contribute the acquired knowledge to their countries’ prosperity.
   2. We must promote intercultural communication among the young in order to provide exchange of experience and international dialogue, so that the succeeding generations will be prepared to overcome future hurdles, including poverty, all together. For the sake of it, we might encourage the development of international volunteering, hold conferences and other forms of international communication.

Report of the Expert