What you need to know about the days 2 and 3 of the Cape Town WUDC 2019:

In addition to another three rounds of fierce competition, Day 2 of WUDC culminated in Gender Minorities Inclusion Night and the Women’s Forum.

Gender Inclusion Night was open to all and ran past 21.00 O’clock, featuring two professional speakers and four debate community member panelists (including a member of the Cape Town WUDC Adjudication team, Enting Lee) and moderated by the current two Women’s Officers, who alternated between asking guided questions and taking questions from the audience. Country reports were not delivered and will be released in the minutes by the current Women’s Officers, Lehakoe Masedi and Jayun Bae.

The Women’s Forum discussed structural sexism in debate and barriers to access and retention, experiences that participants had had at this WUDC thus far, and the impacts and prospective impacts of the Affirmative Action Policy. Minutes will be included here once released. The meeting culminated in the election of two Women’s Officers for the coming year, Leba Moloko, representing South Africa as well as Eva-Marie Quinones, representing North America.

A queer forum was held the evening of Day 3 and will be submitting policy recommendations to the WUDC Council tomorrow.

Motions:

Round 4: Info Slide: Decolonization refers to the process of critiquing and moving away from value systems and influences that were imposed on countries during colonialism. Some examples include: removing statues of colonial figures (e.g. Cecil Rhodes), prioritizing indigenous narratives of history over colonial narratives, replacing colonial authors with local authors in curricula)

THBT the ongoing process of decolonization should include actively disempowering religions that were imposed on the country during colonization

Round 5: THW implement substantial measures to impose long-termism in corporate investment culture (e.g. minimum holding periods for shares, yearly rather than quarterly financial reporting, long-term executive compensation plans)

Round 6: THS granting megacities* autonomous control over their economic and social policy (e.g. immigration, health, criminal justice) with national taxation policy remaining in control of the federal government

*Megacities are cities with a population of over 10 million people

Round 7: THW actively encourage women not to have children

Round 8: THBT the US should disengage from Syria

Round 9: THBT developing countries should privatize their State-Owned Enterprises (such as airlines, railways, utility companies)