Public information

The Department of Public Information has launched the 2010 edition of its “Citizen Ambassadors to the United Nations” campaign, which utilizes new media and social networking websites to engage global audiences on the work of the United Nations.

Eighteen university students from around the world have taken on the challenge of leading the 2010 Global Model United Nations Conference organized by the world body’s Department of Public Information, with nine being selected to form the Secretariat while others were elected as General Assembly officials in an online poll.

The Committee on Information this afternoon called on the United Nations Department of Public Information to continue to advance, through new technology, multilingualism, partnership, efficiency and local outreach, to better raise awareness of critical international issues.

The membership of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, which is entrusted with assisting in the preparations for the annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, has been renewed. A total of 56 members, 3 among them new, have been appointed. The Advisory Group members are from all stakeholder groups, representing Governments, private sector and civil society, including the academic and technical communities, representing all regions.

The Department of Public Information would continue to work with the Government of Angola to soon make the planned United Nations Information Centre in Luanda for Portuguese-speaking African countries a reality, Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, said this afternoon as the Committee on Information concluded the general debate of its thirty-second session.

Equality of languages on the United Nations website and the implications of freedom of information were dominant themes in the Committee on Information this afternoon, as it continued the general debate of its thirty-second session.

It was crucial for the United Nations to get its message out through both the latest technologies, such as Twitter, and more traditional ones, such as radio, the head of the Department of Public Information told the Committee on Information as it opened its annual session this morning.

Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan will visit United Nations Headquarters on 27 April to launch a new children’s book on cross-cultural understanding. The book, entitled "The Sandwich Swap", is a warm-hearted fable about friendship and tolerance across cultural lines. The story is based on an anecdote Her Majesty tells and which encapsulates, in today’s troubled times, the need for global understanding.

The wide-ranging efforts of the United Nations to better communicate with the world public will be reviewed in the thirty-second annual session of the Committee on Information, taking place at Headquarters from 26 April to 7 May. During the two-week session, delegations will review the activities of the Department of Public Information and its three subprogrammes -- Strategic Communications, News Services and Outreach Services -– in the period July 2009 to February 2010.

The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme, in partnership with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, will hold its first video conference with students in seven countries in Latin America to help promote Holocaust education, today, 21 April.