Public information

Closing its fortieth session today, the Committee on Information approved two draft resolutions, the second of which emphasized the need to promote multilingualism, bridge the digital divide and maintain the use of traditional media.

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message for World Press Freedom Day, observed today:

Expressing concern about widening global inequality and deepening divides between peoples, speakers addressing the Committee on Information today urged the Department of Public Information to position itself as a critical resource for — and advocate of — the world’s most marginalized communities, as the 115‑member body entered the second day of its fortieth session.

The Department of Public Information was undergoing a process of “review and reform” of how it communicated United Nations values in a world where trust in major institutions was increasingly difficult to maintain, and “fake” stories competed with legitimate news for public attention, the Committee on Information heard today as it opened its fortieth session.

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the World Summit on the Information Society Forum, in Geneva today:

Following is the text of Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message to the World Summit on the Information Society Forum 2018, held in Geneva, 19‑23 March:

NEW YORK, 15 March 2018 (Office of Information and Communications Technology) — The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and the United Nations Department of Management’s Office of Information and Communications Technology announced today that the Blockchain for Social Impact team of ConsenSys has won the Unite Ideas “Blockchain for Humanity” challenge, launched by the World Identity Network, the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and the United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology.

The sixty-seventh volume of the Yearbook of the United Nations, which covers the Organization’s global activities in 2013, was released today online at https://unyearbook.un.org/.

Following is the text of UN Secretary‑General António Guterres’ video message for World Radio Day, under the theme “Radio and Sports”, observed today:

The United Nations announced that a team from the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, has won the Unite Ideas #SDGInsights challenge for its methodology providing a framework to combine multiple data sources based on geographic location, and to apply advanced machine learning algorithms to the data to discover previously hidden patterns.  This will go a long way to improving the tools available for designing sustainable development policies.