Expressions of Interest are now OPEN for the 2023 Evatt Competition.
REGISTER YOUR INTEREST HERE: https://unyouth.wufoo.com/forms/qlipaas0l4dg6c/
The New South Wales Evatt Competition is the NSW State round of the UN Youth Australia Evatt Competition, Australia’s premier debating and diplomacy competition. Evatt is a Model United Nations Security Council diplomacy competition for students in Years 9-12. It aims to educate young people about Australia’s place in the world and empower them as active citizens by developing public speaking, negotiation, teamwork, research, and diplomatic skills.
The competition takes the form of a mock session of the UN Security Council. Teams of two students debate, amend, and vote on resolutions from the perspective of the country they are assigned. Teams will be allocated one of the fifteen countries that are members of the United Nations Security Council in 2022. The students judged the most effective diplomats proceed to the next round.
The competition is named after the notable Herbert “Doc” Evatt, who was an Australian High Court Justice and a leading Federal politician who became President of the UN General Assembly and helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In the course of the debate, students will:
- Deliver speeches to the Council to persuade other teams of their country’s point of view;
- Lobby and negotiate with other teams in caucus time and in a separate Negotiation chamber;
- Amend the resolution to suit their country’s agenda;
- Ask questions of other countries like in Parliamentary Question Time;
- Vote on the final resolution
Round Structure of the Evatt Competition
The top thirty teams from the preliminary rounds are selected to compete at the State Semi-Final where they will debate more challenging resolutions. From there, the top fifteen teams are selected to compete at the State Grand Final (held at NSW Parliament House!) where even more difficult resolutions will be debated. The top five teams from the State Grand Final will be invited to compete in the UN Youth Australia Evatt National Finals in December.
Important Information
Country allocations and the prepared resolution will be emailed to students one week prior to the date of their Preliminary Round, with an impromptu resolution to be disseminated and debated on the day of the round.
Competitors are strongly encouraged to do preliminary research on their country and the issues covered in the prepared resolution.
Check out the National Evatt page for more details on how debate works. If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact the 2023 NSW Director of Administration, Patrick Crown-Milliss, at nswevatt@unyouth.org.au.