Access to information and Sustainable Development Goals in Latin America and the Caribbean

Follow-up on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a central part of the agenda of civil-society organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean to promote and effectively guarantee human rights. That is why the Regional Alliance for Free Expression and Information will pursue a training project for journalists from four Latin American countries (El Salvador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela), to facilitate regional reflection and perhaps generate work proposals to monitor the SDGs through access to public information.

This project is one of 18 initiatives that were presented from Latin America in June 2021 to UNESCO's International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), the only United Nations intergovernmental initiative to promote independent media, mainly in developing countries. On that occasion, 55 projects were approved, to strengthen journalists’ work worldwide.

The project will particularly address SDG 2, focusing on women's health and well-being, and SDG 13, about extractivism and its impact on enjoyment of human rights in the region. It will seek to sensitize and train journalists who research issues regarding the selected Objectives to incorporate monitoring procedures, in addition to these investigative journalists’ learning to use and generating progressive appropriation of the right to access public information and its associated tools. At the same time, it will generate a portfolio of proposals for transnational journalistic work regarding follow-up on the selected SDGs.

The Regional Alliance is a network of 18 civil-society organizations from 15 Latin American countries, with 15 years of experience in defending and promoting the rights of access to public information and freedom of expression in the region.