NationStates Jolt Archive

Calling all UN delegates!

Please take the time to consider this act. Our nation wholeheartedly believes that this is an issue that must be addressed and brought forth for quorum. Here is a copy of the draft:

POVERTY RELIEF ACT
STRENGTH: SIGNIFICANT
CATEGORY: SOCIAL JUSTICE

RECOGNIZES that the United Nations is an international body whose purpose is to increase the global well-being.

REGRETTING that billions of people around the world continue to live in squalor and absolute poverty, hindering economic development in many nations.

RECOGNIZES the clear and present danger that poverty presents before the world body.

UNDERSTANDING that developed nations have a responsibility to the global community to promote the virtues of social and economic equality to all nations.

HEREBY calls for the creation of a GLOBAL POVERTY RELIEF FUND that will go to funding international relief organizations with the purpose of spearheading small to medium-scale projects aimed for humanitarian missions including, but not limited to:

1) Eradication of preventable diseases in areas where said specific disease is especially pandemic
2) Propagation of family planning
3) Construction of clinics providing affordable health care
4) Development of public educational systems
5) Facilitation of industrial development

CALLS for the creation of the UN Economic Development Committee responsible for issues including, but not limited to:

1) Planning and executing the financial and logistical aspects of projects within targeted nations
2) Efficiency and effectiveness of projects financed by monetary funds from the World Relief Fund

ENCOURAGES, but NOT mandates, member nations to establish their own national foreign aid fund with the purpose of contributing said funds to the coffers of the World Relief Fund, as well as encourages governments to solicit financial support from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other beneficent aid agencies to offer financial contributions to the Fund.
_______________________________

We implore your attention to this serious issue.

Regards,
Hakim Zilativ
Ambassador General, the Democratic Republic of Vitalinia

1) Eradication of preventable diseases in areas where said specific disease is especially pandemic


Good.


2) Propagation of family planning


Might run in to some religious issues, but also good.


3) Construction of clinics providing affordable health care


Why not free healthcare?


4) Development of public educational systems


I think the UN already has a resolution on this.


5) Facilitation of industrial development


Why industrial development? We are mostly arable in our nation, and it suits us fine. Why should everyone be industiralized (if I can use such a phrase)


CALLS for the creation of the UN Economic Development Committee responsible for issues including, but not limited to:

1) Planning and executing the financial and logistical aspects of projects within targeted nations
2) Efficiency and effectiveness of projects financed by monetary funds from the World Relief Fund


Eh. who pays for the fund, by the way?


ENCOURAGES, but NOT mandates, member nations to establish their own national foreign aid fund with the purpose of contributing said funds to the coffers of the World Relief Fund, as well as encourages governments to solicit financial support from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other beneficent aid agencies to offer financial contributions to the Fund.


Not to sound ungenerous and judgemental, but what if I think I can spend my money better than the UN can spend it? What if I don't want to donate to some nations? What if - like certain RL countries - I only want to donate to nations that meet my high moral standards? What incentives could you give me to support this over my own foreign aid system that I have already?

(this is mostly devil's advocate, as I tend to think that the UN can probably do a better job judging global needs than I can, but I can almost guaruntee that other nations are less globally minded than I am. And they can also spell guaruntee properly too)

Why not free healthcare?

Economic theory proves that free healthcare will result in reduced quality.

Why industrial development? We are mostly arable in our nation, and it suits us fine. Why should everyone be industiralized (if I can use such a phrase)

No one is being asked to industrialize. This act is for poverty-ridden nations who wish to industrialize but otherwise do not have the funds to do so. The Economic Development Committee will be the ones to decide whether it is best to remain an agricultural economy or an industrial economy depending on what comparative advantage said specific nation has.

Eh. who pays for the fund, by the way?

It's by donation only.... bringing us to your quote...

Not to sound ungenerous and judgemental, but what if I think I can spend my money better than the UN can spend it? What if I don't want to donate to some nations? What if - like certain RL countries - I only want to donate to nations that meet my high moral standards? What incentives could you give me to support this over my own foreign aid system that I have already?


If you want to donate to the nations your government sees fit, that's fine. If you don't want to donate to the Fund, that's fine too. However, it is certain that some nations will donate to the Fund since the UN is most qualified to handle poverty issues like this. Obviously, it will not eradicate poverty immediately, but it will reduce it in the long run.

What do you think? I need your vote. This isn't like our former discussions about state sovereignty. This is about helping people.

Signed,
Hakim Zilativ
Ambassador General, the Democratic Republic of Vitalinia

Economic theory proves that free healthcare will result in reduced quality.


I think a number of people would argue with you about that, but that is more of a real life thing, so I will let it go for the moment :}


No one is being asked to industrialize. This act is for poverty-ridden nations who wish to industrialize but otherwise do not have the funds to do so. The Economic Development Committee will be the ones to decide whether it is best to remain an agricultural economy or an industrial economy depending on what comparative advantage said specific nation has.


Woah - so the decision is not in the hands of the country, but of an NGO?


If you want to donate to the nations your government sees fit, that's fine. If you don't want to donate to the Fund, that's fine too. However, it is certain that some nations will donate to the Fund since the UN is most qualified to handle poverty issues like this. Obviously, it will not eradicate poverty immediately, but it will reduce it in the long run.


Not to rain on your parade, but you might want to check this with - well someone other than me. I have no issue with it, but there might be legal issues with the proposal on the basis of this :}


What do you think? I need your vote. This isn't like our former discussions about state sovereignty. This is about helping people.


Aside from the NGO part, I don't really have any issues with it. But that part - hmmmm.

Woah - so the decision is not in the hands of the country, but of an NGO?

This "NGO" you're talking about is accountable for the efficiency and effectiveness of projects financed by monetary funds from the World Relief Fund. Obviously, if a nation has a comparative advantage in labor intensive endeavors (i.e. agriculture), then it does not make sense for the Economic Development Committee to give money for them to develop a type of economy (industrial) that would be incompatible with the relatively abundant resources at their disposal.

Not to rain on your parade, but you might want to check this with - well someone other than me. I have no issue with it, but there might be legal issues with the proposal on the basis of this :}

No one has mentioned anything so far. I put this out on a thread before (that no longer is here, I don't know why) but it seems to legally check out.

So please, go ahead and approve it. There's less than a day left for this.

Signed,
Hakim Zilativ
Ambassador General, the DR of Vitalinia

Economic theory proves that free healthcare will result in reduced quality.
Economic theory proves nothing of the sort. Indeed, some would argue that economic theory rarely proves anything about anything, other than that economists are fools.

But I digress. I'm cautiously in favour of this proposal, at least for the time being.

Varia Yefremova
Speaker to the UN

I think a number of people would argue with you about that, but that is more of a real life thing, so I will let it go for the moment :}

Including me - free healthcare is always better than unaffordable healthcare if you are poor.

So please, go ahead and approve it. There's less than a day left for this.



I am not actually a delegate you know - I have no way to approve it.

But - I think I would if I were. Which is small comfort I know, but I figured it might make you feel a little better :}

RECOGNIZES the clear and present danger that poverty presents before the world body.
I believe your case would be more pressing if you went into more detail here, explaining the danger of poverty to the world sphere to the uninitiated in global econo-demographics.


UNDERSTANDING that developed nations have a responsibility to the global community to promote the virtues of social and economic equality to all nations. I would personally change the verb here to something other than understanding, which seems to imply it as the natural state of things. Yes, it is a common state that developed nations see fit to help nations less fortunate than themselves, but I'm not sure it's really persuasive to assert that as a the natural state of things. It just seems to upset the scrooges in the UN more than mollify them. Perhaps a "BELIEVING" or a "HOPING" (with a restructuring of the clause altogether), would be more identifiable.

HEREBY calls for the creation of a GLOBAL POVERTY RELIEF FUND that will go to funding international relief organizations with the purpose of spearheading small to medium-scale projects aimed for humanitarian missions including, but not limited to: "HEREBY" isn't a verb. The idea of capitalizing the first word, so far as I know, is to capitalize a verb. If you were to capitalize "HEREBY" and "CALLS" it would seem more in line with convention to me.

1) Eradication of preventable diseases in areas where said specific disease is especially pandemic
Well, this is fine and good and everything, but I'm not sure I like that it doesn't recognize past/current efforts by the UN to stop preventable diseases. I'm not saying you should change it necessarily, it's just the something doesn't quite jive with me about this.2) Propagation of family planning Do you mean abortion education? I think this should go because it's a tad of a stretch for a "poverty relief fund|" to be pushing a social agenda. I see population control and poverty relief as fairly seperatable issues. I'm pretty sure my nation would not donate to an organization which might fund organizations with such loaded political views.
CALLS for the creation of the UN Economic Development Committee responsible for issues including, but not limited to:

1) Planning and executing the financial and logistical aspects of projects within targeted nations
2) Efficiency and effectiveness of projects financed by monetary funds from the World Relief Fund Wait, I thought the individual relief organizations the "GLOBAL POVERTY RELIEF FUND" gave money to would be in charge of their own execution and planning of projects. Does this mean that this "GLOBAL POVERTY RELIEF FUND" is taking over my favorite charities, and telling them how they have to do their work?

Also, what’s the “World Relief Fund”? I though it was the “GLOBAL POVERTY RELIEF FUND”. Where did this new fund come from?

ENCOURAGES, but NOT mandates, member nations to establish their own national foreign aid fund with the purpose of contributing said funds to the coffers of the World Relief Fund, as well as encourages governments to solicit financial support from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other beneficent aid agencies to offer financial contributions to the Fund.

1) coffers is a generally negatively connotative word so far as I know. And it's a redundancy. "Coffers", or places to store money, are implied in a "World Relief Fund". I say you make it "contributing said funds to the World Relief Fund", instead.

2) There's really no need to establish the acronym "NGOs" since you aren’t using the phrase again. The phrase is shortened in a lot of public speech because it's used repeatedly. But, in this single reference to them, I'm not really sure the shortening is necessary. It just seems to take up space to me.


EDIT: Also on the subject of convention in proposal writing, your punctuation is out-of-step with the norm. Typically, each preambulary clause is followed by a comma, and each active clause (that actually effects something) is followed by a semicolon. The last active clause is followed by a period, and the last preambulary clause is followed with a colon. The idea is to make one giant run-on sentence. It's look something like this:
ESTABLISHING stars as the building blocks of constellations,

DETERMINING constellations as critical to navigation on the open seas, in the absence of modern electronic devices,

SEEING the sky as a tool that needs to be available for use:

MANDATES that nations arrest clouds which block the stars and may confuse sea-farers;

REQUIRES that said clouds be subject to a prison sentence for a minimum period of three (3) days, and a minimum fine of $5,000;

ALLOWS that judges or juries may opt out of the minimum fine and prison sentence by requiring the miscreant cloud to undergo rehabilitation (a minimum of 100 hours of rehabilitation);

HOPES clouds everywhere will continue to lead lawful, productive lives over England and Seattle, where they all belong, and not invade the high-seas looking for trouble.

Ok - I figured out what was annoying me about this.

Pallatium is mostly an arable country. We haven't explored a lot, but for all I know we have huge potential to be an industrial nation - fuel sources, mineral deposits and so forth.

Now what if my nation doesn't WANT to become industrialised. Would your committee override that decision?

ESTABLISHING stars as the building blocks of constellations,

DETERMINING constellations as critical to navigation on the open seas, in the absence of modern electronic devices,

SEEING the sky as a tool that needs to be available for use:

MANDATES that nations arrest clouds which block the stars and may confuse sea-farers;

REQUIRES that said clouds be subject to a prison sentence for a minimum period of three (3) days, and a minimum fine of $5,000;

ALLOWS that judges or juries may opt out of the minimum fine and prison sentence by requiring the miscreant cloud to undergo rehabilitation (a minimum of 100 hours of rehabilitation);

HOPES clouds everywhere will continue to lead lawful, productive lives over England and Seattle, where they all belong, and not invade the high-seas looking for trouble.Nice Proposal! You have my support :D Bloody weather!