Public information

During a “jam session” of ideas at Headquarters this afternoon, musicians and musical scholars shed light on the role of jazz music in bridging communities and cultures and encouraging tolerance and social change.

The Committee on Information of the United Nations General Assembly, in association with the United Nations Academic Impact and the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations, will organize a special event to celebrate the first International Jazz Day on 30 April 2012.

The membership of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group of the Internet Governance Forum has been renewed.

Noting the transformation of the past five years of the Department of Public Information into a modern communications outfit, the Department’s top official this afternoon pledged to address Member States’ requests to bolster specific programmes and offices while calling on Governments to help with that process.

The need to fully institute multilingualism in the Organization’s information services, shore up the network of the United Nations Information Centres and increase the cost-effectiveness of the Department of Public Information were among the priority issues put forth today by delegates, as the Committee on Information continued its general debate this afternoon.

Through the strategic use of resources, digital technologies, social media platforms and enhanced partnerships with United Nations system offices and external media outlets, the Department of Public Information was expanding and improving the way it conveyed the United Nations message worldwide, the Organization’s senior communications official told the Committee on Information as it opened its annual session this morning.

The thirty-fourth annual session of the Committee on Information, the intergovernmental body charged with reviewing progress in the field of United Nations public information, will take place at Headquarters from 23 April to 4 May.

The United Nations, in collaboration with the “One Day on Earth” online community, is preparing for what will be the first ever global screening of a film that includes footage that was shot in every country on the planet on a single day. The movie, which bears the same title as the organization, One Day on Earth, will be screened in every country of the world on the same day in late February 2012.

NAIROBI, 30 September — The sixth Internet Governance Forum (IGF) concluded today with secretariat officials describing it as the biggest and liveliest since the institution’s inception as more than 2,000 experts and users attended the meeting at the United Nations offices here. Speaking at the concluding press conference, Forum representative Chengetai Masango said participation in the conference halls and online had been far greater than that of the 2010 event.

More than 2,000 delegates from over 100 countries — representing a multi-stakeholder community of Governments, the private sector, civil society, the Internet community, international organizations and the media — converged on Nairobi, Kenya, today for the sixth meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, which runs until 30 September.