UNESCO

For many rural, poor populations, basic amenities that we take for granted are not provided. With little resources for these communities and widespread gaps between settlements, the ratio of school to land has become razor thin. Few communities have readily accessible schools for children who live in rural areas to attend. With schools so far away, it remains a challenge to get children to regularly attend. Within these rural communities, when students lack primary education it becomes even more difficult for them to break from the current cycle of poverty. The long walks to school every day can be extremely challenging and take much dedication on behalf the students, further discouraging their attendance. Especially in the wake of environmental issues, such as seasonal weather patterns, walking to school in the blistering heat or the freezing cold can make obtaining this education extremely difficult. A few weeks ago, a teacher at a school in rural China posted a picture of one of

If you have heard of the green revolution (look it up), you would know that nations have been struggling to feed the world. However, with the rising temperatures and changes in the precipitation patterns, it might be even harder to feed the whole world by 2100. According to the article, world food production will be cut to half. In addition, despite all efforts, there is still a high population growth rate that might place us at 11.2 billion people by 2100. If these predictions are accurate, necessities such as maize and bread will become luxuries. The challenge here is devising sustainable ways of farming amid the climatic chaos. Check out this article: Global warming could cut essential crop harvests in half, study finds And also, read Egyptian Bread Riots - posted earlier!!!

Hi delegates! I hope everything has been going well for you all and the research papers and conference prep are coming along smoothly. As conference nears (only about a month away!) and deadlines for the papers approach, I just had a few updates and important information to share with you all (this will be pretty long, but please bear with me and read the entire post): Position Papers First and foremost, I wanted to remind you all that position paper deadlines are rapidly approaching, so if you haven't yet started your research, it would be a good idea to do so if you want to be eligible for a research award. At BMUN, we have two deadlines for papers - in order to be considered for a research award, all papers (for both topics) must be turned in by 11:59 PM PST on February 5th, and in order to be considered for any committee award, all papers (for both topics) must be turned in by 11:59 PM PST on February 12th. If you have any particularly extenuating circumstances that make th

According to a report by the FAO, food insecurity has risen in the past 2 years, driven by conflicts and climate-shocks in vulnerable regions of the world. The number of malnourished people had been falling for more than a decade, but it has begun to rise since 2015. That number has risen from 777 million people in 2015 to 815 million people in 2016. The FAO report highlights that out of the 815 million people who are considered malnourished, 489 million live in countries that have ongoing conflicts. Conflict seems to particularly affect the nutrition of children as 75% of “stunted children under the age of 5” live in countries with ongoing conflict. One of the biggest groups at risk of food insecurity is populations that have been displaced, or refugees. The number of displaced persons doubled to 64 million from the period of 2007 to 2016. Many of these refugees flee to nearby countries that do not have enough resources to support them, and many suffer from lack of clean water, sh

This is a very interesting article on how barriers to education are being overcome in Syrian refugee camps. It is also like a pilot project whose impact can help reduce the gap in education between refugee children and children elsewhere. If this works great, it will be applied in the rest of the camp. The article also shows how education hasn’t been prioritized enough in refugee relief aid. I hope it gets you thinking about: - 1.) Ways of ensuring education is prioritized along with health and resettlement 2.) Ways of administering education in places like refugee camp I encourage you to read this article and many more as you think of possible resolutions ahead of time. It is a fun read!!! Feel free to comment and ask questions if you have any. Link is here . Also here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/world/middleeast/macarthur-sesame-street-refugees.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FInternational%20Education

            The paper “Effect of Gender Inequality on Economic Growth” by Mowadat Ali studies the effect that gender inequality has on the economic development of Pakistan by analyzing economic and demographic data collected over for 30 years. This research paper looks specifically at how labor force participation of men and women, Gender Parity Index (GPI), and the country’s openness to trade affect GDP growth. After performing some statistical analysis, the author of the paper finds that these factors do have an effect on the dependent variable, which is GDP growth. The author concludes that positive changes to the GPI and to the female labor participation rate, these changes will result in a positive change in economic growth. This means that promoting gender equality in Pakistan would be beneficial to the economy of the country.             While there are more important reasons why gender equality should be promoted in Pakistan, such as fairness and to improve the lives of Pa

One important aspect of sustainable agriculture that often remains overlooked is the negative effect which it can have on the stability of governments. Although these may seem unrelated, governments have been hit hard by food shortages due to climate related natural disasters, which without sustainable agriculture, can proceed to wipe out entire food supplies. The Middle East has been hit particularly hard by these food shortages due to the nature of their governments subsidy system. In the mid to late 1900s, many governments attempted to launch plans of food subsidies in an attempt to maintain power and favor of the people. Suddenly, citizens were receiving more aid than ever before and put much trust in the previously unstable relationship with the government. However, although good in principle, the citizens soon became reliant on these subsidies and expected them from their government. Many nations have attempted to receive aid for the debt that these subsidies have placed them in

In the last few years, you may have heard the term “CRISPR” – pronounced ‘crisper’ – pop up a few times. But what exactly is CRISPR, and why is it so important? Well, in order to answer that, let’s first pay a quick visit to 2012. That was the year that Jennifer Doudna – a professor of molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley – and her team characterized the activity of what’s now known as CRISPR-cas9. The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology and CRISPR Associated System (cas) was first discovered in bacteria as a defense against foreign viruses and DNA. Eventually, its use progressed into eukaryotic cells for purposes of modification, as the technology was adapted by the Broad Institute for genetic engineering. So how is this accomplished? Basically, CRISPR-cas9 consists of two main parts: the cas9 enzyme, which is capable of cutting DNA at specific locations within the genome – think of pair of molecular scissors – and