IMUNA was honored and excited to participate in last week’s 67th Annual DPI/NGO Conference, hosted by the United Nations Department of Public Information and taking place at the UN Headquarters in New York City. The conference was a meeting of more than 2,000 NGO representatives from around the world and featured critical discussions of how the NGO community can collaborate to achieve the SDGs.

We were proud to represent the broader Model UN community at these discussions. Our overall objective was to make global NGOs more aware of the incredible youth talent that exists at Model UN conferences around the world, and how those youth should be allies in the effort to achieve the SDGs.

To that end, we were grateful to be selected by the conference organizers to host a workshop titled “MUN in Action: Youth Leaders as Partners to Achieve the SDGs.” Organized in collaboration with MUN Impact and WFUNA, this workshop saw an excellent discussion of how NGOs can recruit from and assist MUN conferences so that we may all achieve our shared goals.

IMUNA’s Executive Director, Chris Talamo, also served on the Youth Subcommittee for the conference, helping to organize events specifically for the youth representatives of NGOs who were attending the conference. Through events like panel discussions and intergenerational dialogues, we were proud to help make the youth voice heard at the conference. To read the Youth Declaration that was adopted at the conference in consultation with youth leaders around the world, please click here.