• The issue of regional cooperation to combat food insecurity

Honorable directors, fellow chairs, righteous delegates, and most esteemed guests,

My name is Karim Kitabatake, an 8th grade student at the United Nations International School in Hanoi. This is my 3rd conference and my first conference as a chair. 

I will be honored to be the deputy chair of the AU committee. As a chair, I will make sure to create an engaging and fruitful conference for the committee. 

The theme for this year’s conference is “The role of sovereignty in diplomacy towards international responsibility”. This is a crucial topic because as international relations and diplomacy develop, sovereignty plays a big role in international responsibility, being a factor in a bloc, showing how countries engage with one another, enhancing collective power for a state, and more. On the other hand, sovereignty can also hinder cooperation, undermine collective action, create internal divisions, and more, meaning that sovereignty can be a double edged sword.

The main topic for AU is “The issue of regional cooperation to combat food insecurity”. Hunger is a large problem for Africa and this hunger creates lots of avoidable deaths, which is a serious issue, not just in Africa. In the context of this conference’s theme, cooperation is a big part of this committee’s topic, due to the AU being a collective union of 55 African countries, and being partners with the UN and the World Food Programme. Also, sovereignty can be a big part of the relationship between multiple countries and blocs as I stated earlier.

From my experience as a delegate in my previous conference, I can agree that it can be stressful and pressuring to be a delegate with all of the procedures, research, debates, and more. I hope to make this debate safe for everyone to speak up and express their opinions. I’m also looking forward to seeing the ways that delegates run the debate and hope to help them as they go on in their MUN journeys.

I’m also very excited to hone and progress my own skills in my first time as chair and hope to learn more about things such as what I should say and when, how to foster leadership in the committee, how I can help delegates, and much more.

I hope to see the delegates at their very best, prepared to debate, passionate, and ready to create a memorable conference for the ages!

Honorable directors, fellow chairs, esteemed delegates and distinguished guests, 

My name is Kiara Baloghdi, and I am a  7th grade student at the United Nations International School of Hanoi. This is my 4th conference (including  being an admin for the HS conference last year) and my second time participating as chair. I am honored to be the Head Chair for AU.  As I have already gained some experience, I will try my best to reflect on my past conferences  and improve my skills as a chair.

 The main topic for AU is “The issue of regional cooperation to combat food insecurity”. 

This is an important topic to discuss because lots of places in the world don’t have access to good quality and healthy food and products and many food companies use harmful chemicals in their products, causing people to be sick or worse. Safe food products must be provided to countries all around the world, especially for the ones in need but are struggling to afford it because they don’t have enough financial resources. By providing safe food products, the overall health of people in the world will increase and help us get one step closer to a better planet.

From my previous experience as a chair in the 2025  March conference, I understand the struggle of first time delegates giving and answering POIs, delivering speeches and understanding the rules, procedures and motions. So my responsibility as the Head chair, I will ensure that everyone learns the rules and if some delegates are struggling with that, I will make sure to help them gain better understanding and build up passion for MUN and hopefully make it a good experience for everyone attending the conference. 

I will also try my best to help first time chairs to navigate through the complicated systems of being one. Since this could be my last conference attending as chair, I want to make it as memorable as possible and get to know lots of other people attending the conference as delegates, admins, directors and even fellow chairs. I hope after the conference, more people will be inspired to be part of the MUN community and I hope to inspire more people to try out as chair since it is a wonderful experience.

 Overall, I am really excited to see what the delegates of AU have prepared for the conference and I am looking forward to having a really good time getting to know more people!