World Bank

Dear Governors,

My name is Victor Cruz and I will be your director for the World Bank of Harvard National Model United Nations 2010!

I am a sophomore at Harvard currently planning on concentrating in Applied Mathematics. I am from the best city in the Caribbean: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, an amazing country indeed. I have been participating in Model United Nations since I started high school and I’m excited I can continue this passion in college as well. I was staff for this year’s HNMUN and last years HMUN. Besides Model UN, I also enjoy salsa dancing, tennis, and listening to good music.

I hope you are as excited as I am for this committee and eager to discuss the topics that I have chosen for the World Bank. I wanted to make this committee as close as possible to the real World Bank and I am glad our Secretary-General and Under-Secretary-General agreed on this with me. I hope it will be an awesome experience for you as much as I know it will be amazing for me. The global economic recession is something that is affecting all of us, and the global motor industry crisis needs a solution as soon as possible. Your loan proposals could contain these solutions! The other topic is about agricultural development. With the global food crisis, this is also a topic of high relevance during these times. Many regions of the world have fertile soils that are not being used because they lack the economic power to sustain plantation, and this is were your loan proposals come in and solve these issues.

I really believe these topics are of great interest to everyone and the debate that will arise from your loan proposals and position papers will be of the highest quality. I look forward to meeting all of you in Boston and feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.

Best regards,

Victor Cruz
Director, World Bank
Harvard National Model United Nations 2010

Topic Area A: Global Motor Industry

The global economy has had consequences on all industries of the world. The world recession has debilitated every market. Arguably one of the most affected industries in these times of economic downfall is the automotive industry. The crisis started in the late half of 2008 and has worsened since then. The most affected markets are the United State’s automobile manufacturing industry and Canada, but the recession can also be felt in European nations and Japan.

The crisis started with the oil crisis that made people withdraw from buying large vehicles, which constitute the main US market. Instead, people decided on more fuel-efficient vehicles such as Japanese cars. This, however, did not save the Japanese motor industry as Toyota Motors, a major automobile company in Japan, declared that it expects its first operating loss in 70 years, certainly a troubling statistic.

Economic analysts predict that the situation will get much worse as companies suffer further losses in 2009. This is an unprecedented issue for the motor industry and one that needs the economic expertise of the Governors of the World Bank to be stabilized.

The solution many countries have resorted to is to give emergency funds to companies. Economists, predict this protectionism will worsen the situation and evidence of this can be seen as Chrysler filed for bankruptcy on 30 April 2009 even after receiving US$17.4 billion from Washington. Clearly simply throwing money at the situation will not work. We must idealize a solid economic plan that could stabilize the industry and alleviate the massive losses of these companies.

Topic Area B: Agricultural Development

The prices of food saw a sharp increase during the years 2007 and 2008. This has caused a massive global crisis of food in the world. The conflict has had political and economical repercussions in both developed and underdeveloped countries. The initial causes of the increasing prices are debatable, but many blame it on the rise of oil prices. Although there has been some improvement in food prices in 2009, specialists suggest that this decrease is only temporary.

The food crisis is even more preoccupying when the world population growth, crop shortfalls and the rapidly changing environment are taken into account. People are becoming desperate and evidences of this are the food riots that have taken place in many countries such as Mexico, Bangladesh, and South Africa.

Many countries have very high quality products and extremely rich soils that yield many crops. However, these aliments remain in their respective countries as domestic goods because the plantations and the countries’ economies do not leave room for export. This is again where the World Bank needs to act to ensure that sustainable plantations and products are installed in countries that should be producing high quality goods. Every country has at least one good that is their trademark product and this should be taken advantage of. Loan proposals should clearly detail the expected outcome of the plantation and how it will help the country economy as well as help relieve the global food crisis.