USG of Committees

In Model UN conference structures, the Under-Secretary-General (USG) of Committees is a senior secretariat position reporting directly to the Secretary-General and, often, the Director-General. The role is borrowed in name from the United Nations, where actual Under-Secretaries-General head departments such as DPPA or OCHA, but in MUN it is a purely conference-internal title.

The USG of Committees typically supervises all substantive committee staff — chairs, directors, moderators, and rapporteurs — across the General Assembly, ECOSOC, regional bodies, and sometimes specialized agencies or crisis committees (though large conferences often split off a separate USG of Crisis or USG of Specialized Agencies). Core responsibilities usually include:

• Recruiting and training dais members
• Approving background guides / study guides and topic selection
• Setting academic standards, rules of procedure interpretations, and awards criteria
• Mediating disputes between chairs and delegates during the conference
• Coordinating with the USG of Delegate Affairs on placements and with logistics on room assignments

At established collegiate conferences such as HNMUN, NMUN, WorldMUN, and HMUN, the USG of Committees (or an equivalently titled deputy) is one of the most demanding secretariat roles, often filled months before the conference and involving year-round work. At smaller or high-school conferences the portfolio may be merged with that of the Director-General.

The position is conference-specific: structures vary between organizations. Some secretariats use titles like USG-General Assembly, USG-ECOSOC, or Deputy Secretary-General for Committees to divide the same workload. Unlike the UN's actual USGs, MUN USGs hold no diplomatic status and their authority ends when the conference closes.

Delegates typically interact with the USG of Committees only indirectly — through their chair — but may escalate concerns about procedure, ethics, or chair conduct to this office.