simulation news

Over at the Partnership for a Secure America blog, Joel Meyer offers some thoughts on USIP’s SENSE simulation:

I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in the SENSE simulation(Strategic Economic Needs and Security Exercise) at the U.S. Institute of Peace over the last three days. SENSE is a simulation exercise meant to train leaders in reconstruction in a post-conflict country, in this case the made-up country of Akrona. Originally created to help implement the Dayton Peace Accords, it has been updated since then and used to train Iraqi leaders, among other places. The values of experiential learning are immeasurable, and in the Congressional Fellowship Program here at PSA, we have the Fellows participate in a two-hour NSC Deputies Committee simulation exercise.

In Beirut, the Daily Star reports on the launch of Lebanon’s first model UN simulation:

The Lebanon International Model United Nations (LEBIMUN) Conference opened for the first time in the Middle East on Monday. Model United Nations (MUNs) are simulations of the UN system with the aim of educating the participants on UN structure, multilateralism, and foreign affairs. Many of the UN bodies are represented at MUNs, with the Security Council, the Human Rights Council, and the Economic and Social Council, being the most common.

We’ve also dug up a link for the organizers, the Lebanon International Model United Nations.

SwissInfo reports on ICRC’s simulation-based training methods:

How do you train someone to negotiate a military checkpoint, assist thousands of conflict victims, teach the rules of war to rebels and handle the media?

To find out more swissinfo.ch followed 18 new delegates from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who were learning the ropes in Geneva before heading out to the field.

It’s Tuesday morning. After a week of theory at the Ecogia training centre just outside Geneva, four teams of new delegates were preparing to put into practice what they had learned during a day of intensive simulation exercises.

“Today’s their day of truth,” explained my guide, ICRC delegate Marçal Izard. “They are very scared of making a mistake, so we try not to add too much pressure.”

Posing as a local TV journalist, Izard’s job was to interview the young delegates as they rushed around the lush green countryside in their 4x4s visiting a camp of displaced people and a bombed hospital, and trying to talk their way through a military checkpoint.

The also have some pictures of ICRC’s Ecogia training centre, outside Geneva. Is that a white Toyota land cruiser that I see?