Postgraduate Student of the HSE Has Become Head of the Global Model UN Secretariat

Tatiana Makarova, postgraduate student of the Higher School of Economics Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, has been approved as Secretary-General of the global youth United Nations conference “Global Model UN” which is taking place this August in Incheon, Republic of Korea.

The conference which will bring together 600 participants including students of the UN educational programmes as well as the leaders of the organization (UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is expected to speak at the Incheon event). It aims to define the youth academic community’s position on the problem of sustainable development. The suggestions expressed at the youth summit will be taken into account during the preparation of the main UN conference on sustainable development which is scheduled to be held next year in Rio de Janeiro.

Before gaining the approval of the Secretariat, the postgraduate and PhD students attended seminars and leadership training at the UN headquarters in New York. The conference will be a model, which means that it will involve the same procedures which are traditional at the ‘grown-up’ level and its delegates will have the opportunity to get advice from their senior colleagues.

Over the last four years, Tatiana Makarova has participated in fifteen youth summits organized under the auspices of the UN, but is the first Russian representative to head the Secretariat of the Global Model UN. ‘I was genuinely surprised by my appointment’, the admitted. ‘It is a great honour for me to be Secretary-General of such a prestigious event. I am looking forward to the opportunity to work with my exceptional colleagues’.

Tatiana Makarova has finished her first year of aspirantura studies at the HSE Department of World Politics and is working on a thesis about the interaction between the UN and regional organizations in international and local conflict prevention and resolution.