The high-level panel, “Access of Information – Saving lives, Building Trust, Bringing Hope” will commence UNESCO’s celebrations for the 2020 International Day for Universal Access to Information. Opening remarks from UNESCO will announce the theme of this year’s celebrations, which affirms and reinforces the vital role of access to information in saving lives in times of crisis.

The Open Talks webinar, “Access to Information, Transparency and Openness: Taking Forward Agenda 2030 in Times of Crisis,” will discuss international standards of upholding the right to information, and how such practices create transparency and openness required to navigate crises.

As the UN custodian agency of the Sustainable Development Goal Indicator 16.10.2, UNESCO oversees the monitoring and reporting on public access to information (ATI). However, how can access to information respond to crises and provide insights for the achievement of other Sustainable Development Goals? Furthermore, how can monitoring and reporting be used to improve the guarantees and implementation of ATI? In this webinar, participants will discuss how monitoring and reporting of access to information can effectively contribute to crisis management and beyond.

Now more than ever, access to information protects us from crises. The right to information provides citizens the information that they need in order to prepare for emergencies. The webinar, "Access to Information implementation and Crisis Resolution during COVID-19 Outbreak," will discuss best practices in access to information and how they could be employed to save citizens from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The COVID-19 pandemic draws the spotlight once again on the necessity of multi-stakeholder involvement in validating and disseminating information in times of crisis. With over 1.8 billion youth, ages 14 to 25 worldwide, the leadership of young men and women have never been more crucial. According to UNDESA, “young people are particularly vulnerable to the disruptions of the pandemic has caused, and many are now at risk of being left behind.” The webinar will investigate how youth are engaging in access to information policies, media and information literacy (MIL) policies and strategies as well as make recommends for an outline of a plan of action for youth engagement in Access to Information laws/policies and for these policies to include MIL as tool for education and awareness. 

The webinar, Open Access an  imperative  for Opening Science for building resilience in the face of Covid-19, will celebrate the achievements and innovations in democratization of scientific knowledge and Open Access in the past 20 years, while paving the way forward for coming decades.  The outcome of this webinar will be contribute to   the drafting process of Open Science Recommendation approved by UNESCO’s 40th session of the General Conference.  The webinar will serve as an important opportunity to discuss the future of open access to scientific information, whose call has been renewed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We regret to inform you that, due to the evolving situation related to COVID-19, the 2nd Memory of the World Global Policy Forum, which was scheduled to take place from 27 to 28 October 2020 at UNESCO Headquarters, is now postponed until further notice.  We will keep you posted about any further developments, including the new dates for the event. The Memory of the World Secretariat  Links:  Provisional programme Concept note

The Eighth Session of the Subsidiary Committee of the Meeting of States Parties to the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property will take place at UNESCO (Room I) Headquarters on 27 and 28 October 2020. 

The Executive Board is elected by the General Conference and is one of the three constitutional organs of UNESCO. 

The International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) will celebrate it's 40th anniversary on 24 November 2020 at UNESCO Headquarters (Room IV). The IPDC is the only multilateral forum in the UN system designed to mobilize the international community to discuss and promote media development in developing countries.