Delegate handbook · Rules of Procedure
Model G20 runs on formal Rules of Procedure — the same parliamentary machinery that governs the world’s leading Model UN conferences, adapted for how the G20 actually works: by consensus, toward a joint communiqué. Learn it, and you don’t just attend the summit — you move it.
How a session runs
From gavel to communiqué — the seven stages every delegate should know before they walk in.
The dais calls the roll. Delegates respond “present” (bound to vote) or “present and voting.” Quorum — a quarter of members — must be met to open debate.
Where two or more agenda items exist, the committee first debates and adopts the order of business by a motion to set the agenda.
The default state of formal debate. Delegates are added to a running list and speak in turn on the topic; yields and comments follow each speech.
Focused, rapid-fire debate on a sub-topic. A delegate motions with a total time, a speaking time and a purpose; the dais recognises speakers in turn.
Delegates leave their seats to lobby, form blocs and draft language freely for a set total time. Where the real diplomacy happens.
Blocs consolidate their positions into working papers, then into a single draft communiqué — the summit’s joint statement.
Model G20 adopts by consensus — not a majority vote. The committee refines the communiqué until the room can live with it, then adopts it together.
The delegate’s toolkit
The formal instruments you use to shape debate. Fluency here is what separates a delegate who participates from one who leads.
What makes it real
Most Model UNs end in a vote — a simple majority passes a resolution, and the Security Council hands five countries a veto. The real G20 has neither. It has no charter, no vote and no veto; it works by consensus, and it speaks through a single Leaders’ Declaration that every member has signed onto.
Model G20 keeps that intact. There is no majority to hide behind and no veto to wield — the committee must negotiate a joint communiqué the whole room can accept. That is a harder, more honest diplomatic skill than winning a vote, and it is why a Model G20 delegate walks out able to actually build agreement, not just argue for one.
The committees
The real G20 negotiates on two parallel tracks. So do you.
The leaders’ negotiation — the political and strategic agenda. Delegates work climate action, sustainable development, health, and the digital economy toward a leaders’ communiqué, exactly as a country’s Sherpa prepares the summit.
The finance ministers’ and central-bank-governors’ agenda — international financial stability, debt, trade and the global economy. The track that decides how the money actually moves.
The written record
Every delegate submits a position paper before the summit — one page per agenda item setting out their country’s stance, the evidence behind it, and the outcome they will push for. It is your mandate and your preparation, and the dais reads it.
Model G20 goes a step past the typical MUN: standout delegates develop their work into an academic white paper, and the strongest are published through One Young India and presented at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Debate that ends in a real, citable document — that is the legitimacy most simulations never reach.
Recognition
Awards reward diplomacy, not volume. The dais weighs the quality of your research and position paper, the substance of your interventions, your conduct and decorum, and — above all — your contribution to building the consensus communiqué.
Before you arrive
Ready to be in the room?
