INTERVIEW WITH SHADIA MUÑOZ-NAJAR
(France delegate in the Futuristic Administrative and Budgetary Committee)
NURIA CARRERA: Miss Muñoz-Najar, it’s been a month since the devastating meteor hit the Earth, leaving the entire planet in ruins. With no hope on the horizon the people are turning their heads to the United Nations, awaiting to hear the common agreement you’ll reach to get the world back on its feet. In this calamitous situation, what is France proposing to overcome the event?
SHADIA MUÑOZ-NAJAR: The French Republic strongly supports the idea of using a major percentage of the United Nations’ budget in order to teach skills and train people following the proverb: “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Apart from this, it proposes to use programs such as Ba-Get Ba-Build, which will aim to re-establish the Earth’s infrastructure; French Fries which will boost agriculture; among others.
NURIA CARRERA: This “French Fries” plan, from the name we understand it’s related to the fact that your nation is the second largest potato exporter in the world, but, could you expand on what your program proposes?
SHADIA MUÑOZ-NAJAR: Yes. This program is a helping hand brought by the French Republic to other nations, in which France will kindly provide other countries with seed potatoes given that the UN´s Food and Agricultural Organization is currently promoting the tuber as a more efficient food crop that can improve food security in developing countries; and people instructing them on how to plant them. Countries will pay half of the cost of these imports and will be given a period of 60 years in order to pay the rest.
NURIA CARRERA: All these plans sound great, but how is the United Nations going to be able to get the money it needs to apply any of those programs if currency doesn’t have the same value now that a great number of nations’ gold reserves have been damaged due to the catastrophe? Is the world going to unify with a single global currency in order to let the planet move forward?
SHADIA MUÑOZ-NAJAR: Of course we, as the fifth committee, can not force any country to change their currency. However, taking into consideration that most country's economy have been severely affected, the French Republic is looking to develop the Ba-get Ba-Build program in which countries will be encouraged to pay a percentage (below 50%) of their contribution to the United Nations budget in raw materials used for construction, given that re-establishing the earth's infrastructure should be at the top of this committee’s list. Also, in order to help countries with basic needs, a Target Specific Budget should be developed, in which countries will be provided with 100 “points” which can be used to reconstruct its country, these points will be in a ratio with the amount of money provided and they can be divided in: Water infrastructure (building), sanitation services, education and skills and training
NURIA CARRERA: Well, we will be on the lookout for these plans. Miss Muñoz-Najar, thank you for your time.
SHADIA MUÑOZ-NAJAR: Thank you for having me.
