More People Must Know About Vital UN Work with Support from States, Official Says
New York, Apr 22 2013 7:00PM
United Nations staff members are on the frontlines in such vital endeavours as providing life-saving aid to victims of
conflict, vaccinating millions of children and leading the fight to end extreme poverty and violence against women – and
their story must be told to the global audience, the Organization’s communications chief said today.
“The role of the Department of Public Information is to tell those stories,” Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal,
Under-Secretary-General for Communication and Public Information, told the 114 members of the Information Committee
(COI), an intergovernmental body that meets annually to assess progress made by the United Nations in the field of
public information.
"For the Department, this is not always an easy task, because, as a truly global organization, we would like to tell our
story in as many languages as possible," said Mr. Launsky-Tieffenthal, who is also the Coordinator for Multilingualism
at the UN.
He was optimistic, he said, about the meeting the challenges, however, presenting as strategic objectives strengthening
cooperation with Member States, coordinating communications throughout the United Nations system, and creating modern,
efficient and results-driven communication capacity, on the basis of lessons learned from past experience.
He said that greater fiscal efficiency is being obtained through optimal use of new technologies, including social
networks and applications. At the same time, audiences were also being expanded through older technologies, greater
multilingualism and partnerships with Member States and the private sector.
China National Radio, he said for example, airs UN Radio’s Chinese language programmes and live link-ups when there is
breaking news, including in primetime morning slots. At the same time, the Weibo account of the UN (the Chinese
equivalent of Twitter) is followed by 3.5 million people.
Mr. Launsky-Tieffenthal said that the Department would, this month, experience a significant "leap forward" with the
implementation of its new digital media asset management (MAMS), which should allow all audiovisual productions of DPI
to be met on a common digital platform.
On the ground, he said that partnerships with Member States have reached a new level through the network of 63
Information Centres (UNICs), which works in 53 different languages.
Finally, in response to the request of the Committee to present a strategy to produce press releases in all six official
UN languages, not just English and French, Mr. Launsky-Tieffenthal announced a pilot project was underway in partnership
with the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management.
In the pilot, press releases will be made available in Spanish for specific meetings and the results then evaluated to
determine the additional resources needed to maintain full coverage of meetings in that language, said the Deputy
Secretary-General.
ENDS