Sixty-first session * A/61/150. Item 32 of the provisional agenda* Questions relating to information Questions relating to information Report of the Secretary-General Summary During the first half of 2006, the Department of Public Information continued to address the strategic priorities of the Organization and its reform agenda emanating from the 2005 World Summit. Using a combination of traditional means of communications and the new information and communications technologies, the Department worked in close cooperation with “client departments” within the Secretariat and field offices worldwide to further expand its outreach services. These efforts were guided by four strategic objectives: the targeted delivery of public information, the enhanced use of the new information and communications technologies, increased partnership with civil society and integrating a culture of evaluation at all levels of work. As a result of the Department’s concerted and coordinated efforts, the public information capacity of the Organization was enhanced. I. Introduction 1. In its resolution 60/109 B of 8 December 2005, the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to report to the Committee on Information at its twenty-eighth session and to the General Assembly at its sixty-first session on the activities of the Department of Public Information and on the implementation of the recommendations contained in that resolution. Accordingly, the Department of Public Information introduced five reports for consideration by the Committee on Information at its twenty-eighth session, held from 24 April to 5 May 2006 (A/AC.198/2006/1-A/AC.198/2006/5). The deliberations of the Committee with regard to these reports are reflected in its report to the General Assembly (A/61/21). 2. The present report, prepared in response to the above resolution, updates the information already provided to the twenty-eighth session of the Committee on Information, and describes activities undertaken in the past six months by the Department through its four subprogrammes: communications campaign services, news services, library services and outreach services. II. Overview 3. During the first half of 2006, the Department of Public Information continued to address the strategic priorities of the Organization and its reform agenda emanating from the 2005 World Summit. Using a combination of traditional means of communications, such as print and radio, and new information and communications technologies, such as the Internet and webcasting, the Department worked in close cooperation with over 50 “client departments” within the Secretariat and another 26 field offices to further expand its outreach services to Member States, media and civil society. Three distinct sets of collaborators continued to support the Department’s Headquarters staff in their efforts to gain maximum media exposure: the network of United Nations information centres, the United Nations family of organizations, who are now integrated into the United Nations Communications Group, and a global network of over 1,500 civil society organizations affiliated with the Department. The results-based evaluation and monitoring approach, which now forms a cornerstone of the Department’s work programme, further bolstered its efforts to better formulate communications campaigns, identify the most effective tools and achieve the desired results. III. Communications campaigns services A. Thematic campaigns Human Rights Council 4. One of the key outcomes of the 2005 World Summit was the decision by the General Assembly to establish a new Human Rights Council replacing the Commission on Human Rights. The Department of Public Information, in cooperation with the Offices of the President of the General Assembly and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, designed a communications strategy that aimed to draw the world’s attention to the milestone event and to its historic significance. In advance of the inaugural session of the Human Rights Council, it developed key messages for use by United Nations spokespersons, including those in the field, and distributed press materials explaining the Council’s mandate and modalities. When the Council opened its session in Geneva, the Department prepared news stories and daily summaries of the session’s proceedings and had them posted on United Nations websites. At the conclusion of the session, a summary of the main achievements of the Council session was prepared and posted, together with all other press materials, on the Department’s News Focus webpage. It coordinated a live webcast and archived recordings of the first week of the Council session — the first time this has been done for a human rights meeting in Geneva — an initiative which was warmly welcomed by many, especially in the community of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. 5. The Department’s media outreach during the session resulted in key interviews with the General Assembly President for National Public Radio, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s The World Today (Radio) and British Broadcasting Corporation Television, American Broadcasting Corporation Radio (Australia), Le Temps, Tribune de Genève, Mainichi and Svenska Dagbladet (Stockholm). The Department also acted as media liaison for the President of the Human Rights Council, organizing four press encounters and more than 40 interviews during the two-week session, as well as responding to many press inquiries from the Geneva press corps. International migration and development 6. In preparation for the launch of the report of the Secretary-General on migration and development in May 2006 (A/60/871), the Department of Public Information, in close coordination with the Office of the Secretary-General and his Special Representative on Migration, as well as the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, undertook a number of media outreach activities, both at Headquarters and through its network of information centres. A press kit was prepared and press briefings and interviews were arranged for the launch of the report of the Secretary-General. An op-ed by the Secretary-General was placed in 32 major newspapers in 27 countries. The report launch generated substantial media coverage, including by major wire services, the International Herald Tribune, the British Broadcasting Corporation, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. 7. As part of its communications strategy, the Department developed four key messages for the launch of the report of the Secretary-General on migration and development (ibid): (a) The United Nations is a good place for Governments to talk about migration; (b) Well-managed migration brings many advantages; (c) Migration in today’s interdependent global economy is a fact of life; and (d) Cooperation on migration can alleviate tensions and social costs. Out of 130 articles analysed, 94 per cent of the coverage included United Nations messages (see table below). Message 2 (on the benefits of migration) was cited in 80 per cent of the coverage. Some 17 per cent of all articles included this message in their title, with half of them linking this message directly to the Secretary-General in the headline. In Africa, message 3 (on migration and interdependence) predominated. United Nations Small Arms Review Conference 8. Months before the June-July 2006 United Nations Conference to Review Progress Made in the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects, the Department of Public Information and its client, the Department for Disarmament Affairs, began drafting a communications strategy to promote the Review Conference and the issue. Products developed for the Review Conference included a press kit, a poster, a televised public service announcement by actor and United Nations Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas, and a dedicated website in all six official languages. Extensive guidance on how to promote the issue and the Review Conference was provided to all United Nations information centres. The Department of Public Information also worked with NGOs to organize the presentation of their “One Million Faces” petition to the Secretary-General, calling for a legally binding treaty. 9. The Review Conference faced strong opposition from pro-gun lobbies in the United States, but the Department quickly responded to their criticisms. With explanatory messages and guidance for its spokespersons and field offices, as well as with robust rebuttals to misinformation, it dismissed charges that the United Nations was “conspiring” to ban legal ownership of firearms by civilians. Letters to editors setting the record straight were published in The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. Key international press agencies, including the Associated Press, United Press International and Reuters, repeatedly pointed out that protests received from pro-gun citizens were based on erroneous information. 10. Although the Review Conference ended without an agreement among Member States on an outcome document to address future cooperation and activities, the issue of control of illicit small arms received widespread coverage in major media around the world, with more than 1,200 clippings or transcripts monitored from print, electronic and web-based media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Asahi Shimbun, The Australian, Bangkok Post, O Estado de São Paulo, Financial Times, The Hindu, Le Monde, The Nation (Nairobi), The London Observer, El Pais, Der Spiegel and Toronto Star. The question of Palestine 11. The Department, in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation, organized the fourteenth annual International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East in Moscow on 7 and 8 June 2006, with the theme “New Challenges in the Middle East Peace Process and Israeli-Palestinian Dialogue”. The participants included 10 Israelis and 12 Palestinians, including the mayors of Ashdod (Israel) and Gaza (Palestinian Territory), and the former mayor of Ashkelon (Israel). They expressed support for joining forces to explore common projects that would benefit both societies, and to meet on a regular basis to assess progress in their inter-community collaboration. The proceedings of the seminar were reported by major newspapers in the Middle East, including the Jerusalem Post, Yediot Aharanoth, Palestine Post, Ha’aretz, WAFA (Palestinian News Agency), Al-Ayyam, and Al-Ahram. • Stressing the usefulness of the face-to-face encounter, Liat Collins of the Jerusalem Post wrote, “Getting Israeli and Palestinian journalists to talk to each other around a Tel Aviv-style table is entirely to the point.” The Department of Public Information and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development 12. The Department continued to promote Africa by highlighting the goals of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and by presenting the achievements and challenges facing the region. These efforts were facilitated by the broad reach of the Department’s quarterly magazine, Africa Renewal/Afrique renouveau. Each issue of the quarterly is now read in print and online by some 250,000 people interested in Africa. Helped by growing relationships with major media in Africa, feature articles from the magazine continued to be reproduced in influential national and regional media. During the period under review, a total of 62 articles were published in 27 media (14 print and 13 online) in 14 African countries, including: The Daily Graphic (Ghana), The East African and The Kenya Times (Kenya), The Japan Times (Japan), moAfrika (Lesotho), L’Essor (Mali), Sud Quotidien (Senegal), Business Day (South Africa), Khartoum Monitor (the Sudan), The Guardian (United Republic of Tanzania), and The Daily Mail (Zambia). Articles were also reprinted in: The China Daily and The South China Morning Post (China), Bangkok Post (Thailand) and Afrika Hoje (Portugal, Brazil and the African Lusophone countries). In the United States, the influential Washington Notes on Africa carried two Africa Renewal articles on migration in its spring-summer 2006 issue. • With its special issue of Africa Renewal on HIV/AIDS in Africa, Silent No More, available in English and French, the Department is playing a key role in awareness-raising about AIDS in Africa. Some 4,400 copies of the special issue in English were shipped in response to orders from 36 countries. Some 2,500 copies of Afrique renouveau were distributed separately to 21 countries in sub-Saharan and North Africa, as well as to Canada, France, Germany, and the United States of America. B. The Department of Public Information and United Nations peacekeeping Cooperation with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations 13. The Department of Public Information has continued to work closely with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to further develop and refine its global communications strategy in support of United Nations peace operations. The two Departments co-sponsored the third Meeting of Chiefs of Public Information at United Nations Headquarters in New York (10-12 April 2006), which brought together chiefs of information from 18 United Nations peacekeeping and political missions, along with a large number of Headquarters personnel. The overall aim of the meeting was to provide a forum for dialogue among information staff and the possibility for direct interaction between them and Headquarters personnel. Attention was focused on key doctrinal issues affecting the way public information is conducted in the field and how it is supported at Headquarters. 14. The Department of Public Information also provided specific support for peacekeeping missions in the field. It developed and implemented a strategy to assist the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) in promoting the first elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in more than 40 years, in coordination with other partners, such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. The Department of Public Information also participated in the formulation of detailed plans to strengthen the African Union Mission in the Sudan and for a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur, including sending a representative on the Technical Assessment Mission, and assisted the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in its media relations relating to the Darfur crisis. Most recently, the Department of Public Information assisted in addressing the urgent public information requirements that emerged as a result of the crisis in Lebanon. This included the drafting of messaging guidance and assisting in the deployment of public information staff to the country. 15. On the occasion of the third annual observance of the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers (29 May), the Department of Public Information issued a press kit, developed a special website, produced and displayed memorial panels to honour those who lost their lives in 2004 while on United Nations peacekeeping duty. Various public and media events were organized by United Nations information centres and other United Nations offices around the world. 16. During the reporting period, the Department of Public Information issued three publications in support of United Nations peacekeeping: United Nations Peace Operations — Year in Review 2005; the second revision of the booklet United Nations Peacekeeping: Meeting New Challenges — Frequently asked questions; and Rapid Public Information Response in UN Peacekeeping Operations — DPI Training Manual. Peacebuilding Commission and United Nations Democracy Fund 17. In preparation for the first meeting of the Organizational Committee of the Peacebuilding Commission, held on 23 June, the Department prepared a fact sheet, created a website, carried out other media activities and sent guidance and information material to United Nations information centres to help publicize the inaugural meeting of the Commission. The Department also provided public information assistance to the United Nations Democracy Fund to promote its activities. IV. United Nations information centres 18. The Department of Public Information took further measures to integrate the network of United Nations information centres into its overall communications strategies and workplan. As part of this process, it developed a database for the input of communications workplans by various sections at Headquarters and by the individual information centres. Posted on the newly created internal website, StratCom, the information on the global activities planned for any given strategic communications priority and the status of their implementation is now available to programme managers in the Department’s Information Centres Service. It is envisaged that, as the implementation progresses and concludes, the Department will be able to easily determine the status of any information centre activity and, at the conclusion, using the data posted by individual information centres, prepare a qualitative assessment of the effectiveness of these activities. 19. Further progress was also made in the coordination of communications at the field level. With the endorsement in March 2006 by the United Nations Communications Group of the guidelines for the establishment and functioning of country-level communications groups, several of these country-level groups have been established. In two regions, the Middle East and Latin America and the Caribbean, United Nations Communications Groups have been brought under a regional umbrella. By bringing together communications staff of all field offices under the local and regional United Nations Communications Groups, there will be greater cohesiveness in the messages put forward by the United Nations country teams. The United Nations Communications Group, which held its fifth annual meeting at the principals’ level in June 2006, agreed to further strengthen the United Nations Communications Groups at the country and regional levels by promoting joint work programmes and resource-sharing. Under the previously agreed guidelines, United Nations information centres have been asked to provide the secretariat for local United Nations Communications Groups. Also, a number of information centres have been tasked with managing the United Nations country teams’ web presence in the country of operation and to coordinate the content management of their websites. 20. In addition to strengthening the local web presence (currently 47 United Nations information centres maintain websites in 5 official and 26 unofficial languages), information centres made progress in developing better online strategies. The technical team in the United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe in Brussels has developed a content management system that will enable local staff in information centres to update and maintain their own websites through a user-friendly interface. Starting with information centres in sub-Saharan Africa, the project envisions that all websites maintained by the information centres will be accessible and uniform while still addressing the information needs of their local audiences. The domain name was registered for this purpose and will become the umbrella website encompassing the global network of information centres. 21. United Nations information centres have continued to take advantage of communications opportunities to promote United Nations messages both to established and new audiences. For example, the 2006 World Cup provided an excellent opportunity to peg the United Nations messages of peace and development to a broad and diverse global audience. Several information centres organized special activities, often involving young audiences. Among those, United Nations information centres in Dakar and Yaoundé organized student web chats with counterparts assembled at a youth event in Enshede in the Netherlands, discussing the role of sport in promoting peace, dialogue and development. This activity, involving the Department’s Global Teaching and Learning Project, took advantage of the low-cost technology acquired for a similar activity planned around the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005 in Tunis, and again demonstrated the effectiveness of using technology in bringing together diverse audiences to exchange views and ideas in the spirit of dialogue and cooperation. In Côte d’Ivoire, the United Nations Mission organized a highly successful youth football tournament that brought together participants from the warring parties, while the United Nations information centre in Brazzaville brought youngsters from disadvantaged neighbourhoods to the centre premises to watch the final game of the World Cup. The United Nations information centre in Lomé hosted several events including a football tournament for orphaned children organized in cooperation with local NGOs. The centre distributed T-shirts featuring a photo of the Togolese football team and the slogan “Sport for Development and Peace”. 22. United Nations information centres took an active part in the implementation of the integrated communications strategy leading to the recent review conference on small arms (see paras. 8-10 above). Taking advantage of the seed money provided for in the Conference budget, information centres prepared a comprehensive programme of communications activities emphasizing local angles. United Nations information centres in Antananarivo, Dakar, Lagos, Moscow, Ouagadougou and Pretoria organized briefings and public discussions among key local stakeholders on the issues before the Conference, some of them aired on television and on national and local radio stations. Conference information materials were translated into a number of local languages. Several information centres also arranged for the publication of newspaper supplements featuring the issues before the review conference. 23. United Nations information centres were also instrumental in generating extensive local media coverage of the inaugural session of the Human Rights Council. With their assistance, an op-ed article on the Human Rights Council by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was placed in 19 papers in 19 countries, including in Alwasat (Bahrain), the Egyptian Gazette (Egypt), Le Temps (Switzerland), The Nation (Kenya), Reforma (Mexico), Jornal de Noticias (Portugal), Avvenire (Italy), and The Scotsman (Scotland). The Regional Information Centre in Brussels alone translated the article into five Nordic languages and placed it in Politiken (Danish daily), Helsingin Sanomat (Finnish daily), Fréttablaðið (Icelandic daily), and Dagbladet (Norwegian daily). V. News services A. The Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General 24. The Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General conducts the daily noon briefing and keeps the press, delegations and the public informed, not only of the work of the Secretary-General, but also of developments throughout the United Nations system. During the past year (July 2005 through June 2006), the Spokesman held 241 press briefings. His Office also organized 20 press conferences given by the Secretary-General at Headquarters and abroad, 83 press briefings by Member States, 169 press conferences by senior officials, and 14 background briefings. In addition, the Office coordinated 106 press encounters and 37 press interviews with the Secretary-General at Headquarters and during his official visits to Member States. B. News services The United Nations website 25. The United Nations website completed its eleventh year as one of the premier sites providing a wide range of news and information in multiple forms — audio, video and photos, as well as text — in multiple languages to users around the world. On a typical weekday, users now view more than a million pages of material in the six official languages, and more than 15,000 video clips. Enhancing the quantity and range of material available in all official languages continues to be a major priority for the Department. Since January 2006, the Web Services Section has posted an average of almost 570 new pages per official language, with an average of 2,216 pages updated per language. The Section also created 13 websites in multiple languages for specific events and occasions, such as the conference on the illegal trade in small arms; the report on weapons of mass destruction; the twentieth anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe; the report of the Secretary-General, Uniting Against Terrorism; a site for the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust; and one for the Peacebuilding Commission. Accessibility for persons with disabilities 26. The main pages of the website that are published in the six official languages have been revised to ensure accessibility for persons with disabilities. These pages feature Accessibility level I and II compliance. Level I is composed of minimum requirements, while level II requirements further enhance access by persons with disabilities. All new pages created will be compliant with at least level I, and most with level II. These pages are now much faster to download than before. New guidelines have been put in place by the Web Services Section in order to monitor compliance with accessibility levels. Many staff members have been trained in how to implement them and the necessary software tools have been procured and installed. This new effort has resulted in about a 20 per cent increase in average production time for new web pages. Website governance 27. Since the inception of the governance system for United Nations Internet publishing, the United Nations website has grown enormously in terms of multilingual text material and the amount of audio, graphics and video material available. Although there are web-based publishing guidelines that aim to standardize publishing tools and applications for the United Nations website, a wide range of non-standard applications have been used by various content-providing offices in the United Nations Secretariat and have created incompatibility between sub-sites. This means that replication of the site as part of a disaster recovery system is impossible. Furthermore, this incompatibility has made it difficult to share data among sub-sites. 28. The introduction of an enterprise content management system, now under way, will permit improved technical standardization, as well as in presentation. With an enterprise content management system, the site will have a more streamlined architecture and therefore easier to back up, and will address the requirement that all information technology systems be interoperable. The scale and complexity of the present United Nations website, its new enterprise content management system, and the need for adequate back-up capacity, all require a strengthened governance structure. The Department is addressing the issue of Internet governance with the Information Technology Services Division of the Department of Management, with a view to establishing technical standards and an improved governance system. Internet broadcasting 29. The use of Internet broadcasting, or webcasting, has grown as a cost-effective and efficient tool to deliver major United Nations events in real time to audiences around the world. During 2005, a total of 6,124,401 visitors viewed webcasts from either the live United Nations Internet broadcast page or from its archive library. The number of subscribers to the e-mail alert system for the daily Internet broadcast schedule more than doubled in 2005, to 5,120. Currently, Internet broadcasts of all open meetings of the General Assembly and Security Council are available in the floor language. Webcast coverage was also provided to meetings of the Human Rights Council and the Economic and Social Council in Geneva. The expansion of Internet broadcasting to include other languages is being actively pursued. United Nations News Centre 30. As part of its overall strategy to fully harness the potential of the Internet for worldwide dissemination of the latest news and information about the United Nations, the Department continued to develop the United Nations News Centre portal, while enhancing the efficacy of the associated United Nations News Service by improving the scope, timeliness, accuracy and balance of its coverage of United Nations work at Headquarters and around the world. The portal’s visibility has increased substantially on several leading online search engines, including Google, whose “Directory” service currently features United Nations News Centre among the top 24 news sites. Similarly, the Best-2006.com website has listed United Nations News Centre among its selection of 37 top sites under the “News” category. Another encouraging sign is the growing popularity of the portal’s News Focus feature, designed to address the need to respond rapidly to breaking developments by providing easy access to a wide range of source materials on major developments and issues in the news. At the same time, the email news service in French and English continued to gain new subscribers, with a combined total reaching nearly 43,000. Other services to the media 31. The Department continues to provide coverage in the form of press releases of all open intergovernmental meetings, as well as press conferences. In the first six months of 2006, the Department produced a total of 2,164 such releases (8,847 pages) in English and French. Last year, coverage was extended with the provision of releases of briefings of the spokespersons for the President of the General Assembly and for the Secretary-General, in French, as well as English. 32. The Department also continues to facilitate access by media for coverage of United Nations activities at Headquarters and overseas by providing accreditation, liaison and other services through its Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit. From February to June 2006, the Department issued 673 permanent and 784 temporary press accreditations, performed 1,369 liaison assignments, and conducted 12 tours for groups of students or professional journalists. It also provided information about, and logistical assistance for 294 media stake-outs. During this period, 148 press conferences/briefings were held and attended by 3,425 journalists. Placement of op-ed articles 33. To maximize opportunities presented by such traditional venues of media discourse as newspaper opinion pages and Letters to the Editor, the Department, with the help of its network of United Nations information centres, stepped up efforts to ensure the widest possible placement of articles by the Secretary-General and senior United Nations officials. The Department worked closely with substantive departments to provide advice and assistance on placement-related issues by utilizing its media outreach expertise both at Headquarters and throughout its global network of information centres. For example, the Secretary-General’s article tied to the opening of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup was published in over 70 papers in more than 40 countries. Helping to amplify the message, the article, which highlighted the Organization’s goals and activities, also generated considerable news coverage by wire services and a variety of other media outlets and websites. C. “Ten Stories the World Should Hear More About” 34. Continuing its efforts to draw attention to important issues and developments that often slip off the media radar screen, the Department released its third annual list of “Ten Stories the World Should Hear More About”. As in previous years, the 2006 list spanned geographical regions and covered a broad spectrum of topics, including Liberia’s development challenge after years of civil war, challenges faced by illegal migrants worldwide, the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and children caught in Nepal’s civil strife. Developed in close consultation with other United Nations offices and programmes, and with input from United Nations information centres, the initiative generated considerable media coverage. The special “Ten Stories” page on the United Nations website, available in all official languages, registered a substantial increase in traffic and usage of its materials, and related stories published on the United Nations News Centre and produced by United Nations Radio, continue to be picked up by a wide range of outlets and websites, including those of NGOs, educational and academic institutions and the media. D. Radio, television and United Nations photo services 35. Aware of the important role radio can play in spreading the United Nations message, the Department has continued to strengthen its radio programming and to expand its partnerships with international broadcasters. All six official language radio websites and those for Portuguese and Kiswahili were given major technical overhauls this past year. The Department also made available on the United Nations Radio website its programming in four Asian languages — Bangla, Hindi, Urdu and Indonesian. The new radio pages use database-driven technology which enables much faster downloading time and easier, faster searching. These improvements also enable broadcasters and the general public to find a broader range of material, such as unedited interviews and speeches. A pilot project was undertaken with resources from the United Nations Foundation to serve North American radio audiences with news reports, features and “raw” audio via the web. 36. The FTP (file transfer protocol) access to raw audio maintained by the Department’s Audio Library has also proved extremely useful, allowing stake-outs and other breaking news to be made almost immediately available to media outlets. This capacity will be expanded and offered as well on the website. Efforts are under way to develop the means to make the sites more flexible in order to allow stories to be posted to the site as they become available. The Department has also introduced software to determine who is downloading radio material and which material is being downloaded. 37. Improvements in delivery systems, along with active promotion of its programmes, have led to further expansion of United Nations Radio’s potential audience reach. The number of radio partners has already increased from 317 in December 2005 to 344 in June 2006, confirming the continued growth in United Nations Radio’s listeners demonstrated in the extensive survey carried out of the Department’s radio and television partners in 2005. 38. The potential audience for United Nations Television products has also increased, thanks to “UNifeed”, an inter-agency satellite news service spearheaded by the Department and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). For the first time, the United Nations is offering timely field video six days a week to a worldwide network of broadcasters via the world’s largest television news agency, the Associated Press Television News, and the European Broadcasting Union. It is expected that the feed will be distributed by the Asia Broadcasting Union next year. In keeping with its culture of evaluation, the Department has contracted a video tracking company to report on the use of its products, and the results so far show that they are being used by international broadcasters in every part of the world. Video distribution will be further enhanced by a web-based system to be launched by year’s end, which will enable it to offer video material and stories in various formats, giving broadcasters more material and to make it available longer than satellite distribution allows. Web delivery will also enable United Nations Television to offer more interviews with United Nations officials for broadcasters to incorporate into their programming. 39. In order to offer a more in-depth perspective on United Nations issues, the Department has begun producing a 26-minute television news magazine show, entitled 21st Century. A pilot for the monthly programme has been distributed to television networks around the globe. This replaces World Chronicle, an English-only talk show which was no longer attracting audiences, according to a survey commissioned by the Department. 40. The production of UN in Action, a weekly feature on the work of the United Nations continues, as do the United Nations contributions to CNN World Report. Two United Nations stories were recently honoured with awards for excellence from the Cable News Network. 41. The Department is currently in the final stages of negotiations of various partnership deals with broadcasters and redisseminators, including with Canal France International for the distribution of UN in Action to 80 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East; France 24 for the distribution of UN in Action and 21st Century; and Radio France Internationale/World Space for United Nations Radio, among others. 42. The Department is also improving the distribution of its photographs. The Networked Interactive Content Access application, introduced in 2004, has continued to serve as a stable and reliable photo digital assets management system. The Networked Interactive Content Access has helped streamline the production and distribution of United Nations photos with a central photo repository, offering a wider selection of images and a better photo collection management system. With the close collaboration of the Department for General Assembly and Conference Management, thematic photo galleries are now displayed on the monitors outside of Headquarters conference rooms. 43. In its ongoing efforts to preserve and disseminate its valuable audio-visual archives, the Department of Public Information is working with the International Federation of Television Archives and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on a project to digitize its collections as a showcase preservation project. E. Print products 44. In May 2006, the Department published the revised edition of Basic Facts About the United Nations in French and Spanish. This completely updated, Internet-friendly edition, provides a comprehensive, yet concise overview of the diverse activities of the United Nations system. A revised edition of the smaller, companion volume, United Nations in Brief, was simultaneously issued in all six official languages. During this same period, an updated version of Image & Reality — Questions and Answers about the United Nations, was published on the United Nations website. VI. Library services A. Dag Hammarskjöld Library 45. The ongoing focus for the Dag Hammarskjöld Library has been to follow up on new strategic directions for United Nations libraries, outlined in the report of the Secretary-General (A/AC.198/2005/4). This includes the expanded role given to the Library in improving knowledge sharing and internal communications within the United Nations Secretariat. Since February 2006, three presentations by well-known experts were offered in the Library on issues related to the management of content and content searching, and issues concerned with internal communication. The Library also arranged for an Internet search specialist to provide a week of training for Secretariat staff that focused on advanced Internet searching techniques. This highly successful programme was attended by over 200 staff members from 11 departments. 46. Expanding the outreach capacity of depository libraries continues to remain a major focus. As of July 2006, there were 406 active depository libraries in 145 countries receiving United Nations documents and publications. Changes in information and communication technology make it possible to disseminate information and knowledge through electronic means. These new networks will require more support and training to depository libraries, however. In May 2006, through a partnership with Kyung Hee University in the Republic of Korea, a training programme was offered for representatives from nine depository libraries. The Library is exploring other partnerships to further develop training and support for depository libraries and to promote and extend the outreach capacity of the United Nations, based on this model. The activities of the depository library programme are now being reviewed. 47. The Library continues to guide the development and expansion of the Organization’s Intranet, iSeek, with a view to enhancing and improving this tool for internal organizational communications. In September 2005, iSeek was re-launched. By the end of 2005, special arrangements were made to make iSeek accessible to all United Nations information centres; in May 2006, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific became the first overseas office to fully participate in the programme through the launch of its own iSeek page, followed in July 2006 by the United Nations Office at Geneva, which launched its bilingual English-French iSeek. Other duty stations are progressing towards full participation. In June of 2006 more than 50 participants from New York and other duty stations came together at the Library to discuss the role of iSeek and how it can be used to support the Secretariat internal communications strategy. 48. The Library continues its efforts to bring high quality information resources to the desktops of official United Nations system users through the purchasing of relevant online information services. Acquisition of most of these services is coordinated through the United Nations System Electronic Information Acquisitions Consortium, which has succeeded in negotiating considerably lower prices for many United Nations system libraries. B. Educational outreach service The United Nations Works Programme 49. With the seismic shift in the way young people access information and communicate, the Department’s educational outreach service, now part of the library services, has refocused its strategies to take advantage of new trends and to expand the United Nations outreach to this key demographic group. A key partner in this initiative has been the United States-based MTV network, which now has 164 channels in 103 countries with over a billion viewers. Following its successful partnership on United Nations relief efforts in Pakistan following the 2005 earthquake, the United Nations Works Programme is launching a new global campaign with MTV about the water crisis in developing countries. The partnership, which involves UNICEF and UNDP, will include television specials, news segments, a dedicated website, radio and television spots; free downloadable lesson plans and an online action centre to encourage young people to get involved. • The MTV-United Nations Works documentary on the earthquake in Pakistan was nominated in June for the first-ever Emmy award for original news and documentary programming created specifically for non-traditional viewing platforms, including computers, mobile phones, portable media players and similar devices. Cyberschoolbus 50. The Cyberschoolbus website, which is part of the Department’s Global Teaching and Learning Project, has significantly increased its reach across the world. During the period from February to June 2006, visitors to the Cyberschoolbus ranged from 184,079 in February to a new record of 377,668 in May. This represents a 100 per cent increase in visitors over the same period one year ago. Graphic design 51. The Graphic Design Unit continues to create visual branding for the United Nations global campaigns on key issues such as HIV/AIDS, and initiatives to advance awareness, technical knowledge and education. Notable examples include the award-winning poster design for the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, the logo designs for indigenous people and book designs for United Nations publications. VII. Outreach services Partnership with non-governmental organizations 52. The fifty-ninth Annual Conference of the Department of Public Information for Non-Governmental Organizations, scheduled to be held from 6 to 8 September 2006, entitled “Unfinished Business: Effective Partnerships for Human Security and Sustainable Development”, aims to further strengthen the Department’s partnership with NGOs and civil society. Throughout the three-day Conference participants will have various opportunities to network and exchange views, opinions, expertise and best practices on relevant issues. In addition to five plenary sessions and six round tables, there will be 30 midday NGO workshops featuring the participation of representatives of civil society, the United Nations, Government and the private sector. 53. In the first half of 2006, the Department associated 50 new NGOs and disassociated 78 organizations that no longer meet the criteria for association, bringing the total number of NGOs associated with the Department to 1,564 as of July 2006. Guided tours and briefings for visitors 54. The guided tour operation, which experienced a banner year in 2005, continued, in the first half of 2006, to see an upward trend in the number of visitors exploring United Nations Headquarters. In conjunction with taking the guided tour, visiting groups often attend briefings by United Nations officials on United Nations-related topics. These briefings — as well as outside speaking engagements — are also organized by the Department, which manages the United Nations Speakers’ Bureau. From 1 July 2005 to 30 June 2006, over 1,000 in-house briefings, 50 outside speaking engagements and 24 video conferences were organized. Documentary film festival 55. In its continuing effort to build awareness for the Millennium Development Goals and to connect with a wide range of audiences, the Department organized the second United Nations Documentary Film Festival, “Stories from the Field”, in May 2006, in collaboration with the Media Communications Association and the New School in New York. Preparations for the third festival have begun. In another initiative, the Department collaborated with a United States-based entity which organized a nationwide film competition, that targeted students in more than 300 colleges and via the Internet, to promote the Millennium Development Goals, and invited their students to create short films on important social issues relevant to the goals. Exhibits 56. Exhibitions at Headquarters provide an educational and cultural experience for the 1 million visitors passing through the Public Lobby annually. A large number of exhibits were mounted during the period under review, including a joint project with the National Geographic Society focusing on indigenous peoples, which coincided with the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in May 2006. Also notable are multiple projects displayed for the High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on AIDS (31 May-2 June 2006), including panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt shown along with a photo-essay collaboration with Newsweek Magazine and UNAIDS. Exhibits sponsored by Permanent Missions ranged from World Heritage Sites in Mexico and Cambodia to the theme of globalization presented by Switzerland. An unusual topic was covered in “Earth’s Elders”, an exhibition of portraits and stories of men and women from around the world who are 110 years old. Other topics included child labour and forced labour (International Labour Organization), small arms, inequality (Human Development Report) and journalistic freedom (Alexia Foundation and World Press Photo). An exhibit in the Headquarters Public Lobby on illicit weapons drew thousands of viewers and widespread coverage, particularly by Latin American media, after the exhibit was inaugurated by a Colombian rock band, featuring a guitar fashioned from a rifle. Holocaust and the United Nations outreach programme 57. Following the adoption of General Assembly resolution 60/7 on 1 November 2005, the Department established the Holocaust and the United Nations outreach programme to raise awareness of the lessons of the Holocaust and of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide. The core elements of the outreach programme included an annual commemorative ceremony for Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed on 27 January, which in 2006 launched an annual lecture on the theme of “Remembrance and Beyond”; a film series with the New York Tolerance Center; a series of discussion papers in English and French on the subject of the Holocaust and the prevention of genocide drafted by scholars around the globe; presentations to intergovernmental and civil society organizations by the Department’s programme managers; and a gateway website to facilitate development of educational curricula on the Holocaust by Member States. As part of this programme, the Department has initiated new partnerships with civil society organizations worldwide that have a proven record in Holocaust remembrance and education. It also organizes an annual seminar on Holocaust Awareness and Genocide Prevention. Details on this seminar and other activities held through May 2006 have been reflected in the report of the Secretary-General on the programme of outreach on the “Holocaust and the United Nations” (A/60/882). Since issuance of the report, the Department made presentations to the Association of Holocaust Organizations on 12 June, an international conference on Holocaust education at Yad Vashem, Israel, on 28 June, and to the La Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah on 5 July. In early 2006, a joint exhibit was launched for the first official Holocaust Remembrance at the United Nations. Artworks by children who were in the death camps at Terezin were contributed by the Permanent Mission of the Czech Republic along with “No Child’s Play”, from Yad Vashem. The film series on the Holocaust, also a part of the programme, continued with the screening of The Pianist on 19 July, and Professor Ben Kiernan, Director of the Genocide Studies Programme at Yale University, drafted the second in the series of discussion papers on lessons to be learned from the Holocaust. Journalists’ Fellowship Programme 58. For the twenty-fifth successive year, the Department will bring a group of journalists from developing countries to New York in September 2006, to participate in the Reham Al-Farra Memorial Journalists’ Fellowship Programme. During a six-week period, they will have the opportunity to report on meetings of the sixty-first session of the General Assembly, including the High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development. Since the Programme’s inception in 1981, more than 360 journalists from 153 countries have benefited from the Fellowship Programme. • According to an evaluation of the 2005 programme, all participants found the experience “a unique and worthwhile opportunity”. The journalists rated 75 per cent of the briefings as “highly interesting and useful”. Without exception, the journalists found the debates organized among high-level United Nations officials and representatives of Permanent Missions to be highly informative and one of the most interesting elements of the programme. Academic initiatives 59. As part of the Department’s continuing effort to draw upon the involvement of the academic community in policy thinking and evolution at the United Nations, a new section has been created in the Department which combines two flagship reference publications, the Yearbook of the United Nations and the UN Chronicle, with the provision of print, electronic and convening forums for shared thinking on issues vital to the Organization and its Member States. 60. During the past 12 months, the UN Chronicle Online version in English registered an average of approximately 95,000 page views per month, while the French online version, Chronique ONU: Edition en ligne, registered an average of approximately 38,000 page views per month. There has been a dramatic increase in the references to and citations of the UN Chronicle since it began to consciously target academic audiences. Its articles have been cited in over 500 pages of books indexed by Google’s new book search engine. UN Chronicle’s regular educational E-Alerts are referenced over 900 times by Google and its articles are referenced over 80,000 times. All of these results are from outside the main United Nations website. Using Questia, the world’s largest online library, references or reprints of UN Chronicle articles are cited over 2,600 times, including in 80 books. 61. The Yearbook of the United Nations is published annually and covers all major activities undertaken by the United Nations within the calendar year. The 2004 edition, the fifty-eighth volume in a series of annual publications, will be issued in early September. The publication is the primary comprehensive and authoritative reference book on the United Nations, and its users are mainly diplomats, Government officials, academics, journalists and others with a special interest in international affairs. Based on last year’s sales and distribution, the Section will issue 2,800 books of the 2004 edition. 62. The Higher Education Outreach Project, which uses videoconferencing as a communications and learning tool, was developed through an agreement between the United Nations Department of Public Information, Fairleigh Dickinson University and the United Nations Association of the United States. Students and educators at Fairleigh Dickinson and other colleges and universities possessing the required technical capabilities are able to follow and participate in discussions among United Nations ambassadors, diplomats and other distinguished experts. In addition, these are webcast and archived online. The first event, “The Coming Avian Flu Pandemic: Its Scope and Consequences on a Global Society”, was hosted by Fairleigh Dickinson on 3 November 2005. A second videoconference, “Equality, Empowerment and Education: a New Era for Latin American Women”, was held on 27 April 2006. United Nations Messengers of Peace 63. With the support of the World Health Organization Tuberculosis Unit and the Stop TB Campaign, United Nations Messenger of Peace Anna Cataldi visited East Africa, to focus media attention on tuberculosis. The visit has resulted in a television documentary on the impact of tuberculosis in Kenya as well as Ms. Cataldi’s participation in a high profile media event in Milan, Italy, to observe World TB Day, and other media events. Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas featured in a public service announcement to raise awareness of the illicit trade in small arms and to promote the United Nations Small Arms Review Conference. The public service announcement, produced as a joint project of the Department of Public Information, the Department of Disarmament Affairs and United Nations information centres, was for the first time produced in 20 languages and successfully broadcast in more than 40 countries. VIII. A culture of evaluation 64. The analysis of the work of the Department of Public Information with the media, specifically the impact of public information and communications campaigns, is an area in which the Department has been working to establish more systematic assessment. To this end, the Department has provided training to staff members by external media monitoring specialists, who also helped to create a media analysis tool for use by communications campaign managers. Most recently, as a result of the training, the Department embarked on a pilot project to involve United Nations information centres in global systematic media monitoring and analysis. The results of the project will be used to improve the Department’s communications planning, as well as to develop its analytic capacities in the area of international press coverage. 65. In building its capacity for systematic assessment, the Department continues to benefit from partnerships on a pro bono basis. One recent example was a survey carried out by the International Association of Applied Psychology and the Department. The survey underlined the usefulness of the Department’s annual NGO conference, with almost all respondents viewing the event favourably and 62 per cent attending often or very often. Most importantly, the relevance of a strong relationship between the Department and NGOs was reaffirmed, with 86 per cent of respondents emphasizing that working effectively with the United Nations was vital to carrying out their mission. Furthermore, 93 per cent saw disseminating information about the United Nations as one of their primary roles as NGO representatives. IX. Conclusions 66. Responding to the ever changing demands of the time and of the changing priorities, the Department of Public Information has constantly updated its work methods, activities and products. By clearly enunciating its role and coherently elaborating its functions, it is now able to plan and use its resources more effectively. Several factors have helped the Department in this process: a new strategic approach to communications that emphasizes long-term goals; increased cooperation with United Nations system partners; greater use of the new information and communications technologies and their integration at all levels of work; and expansion of its partnership with civil society. Today, the Department is more aware than ever before of its strengths and weaknesses, thanks in large part to its emphasis on a culture of evaluation. The Department of Public Information is the first department in the Secretariat to institute an Annual Programme Impact Review as a self-evaluation tool for its managers, making it an integral part of its work programme. Practically all Department of Public Information programme managers have now been trained in self-evaluation, a pioneering development for the Secretariat. In short, with its activities aligned with the overall priorities of the Organization, the Department is now better equipped to achieve its mandate. Cumulatively, this has led to the overall enhancement of the public information capacity of the Organization. 67. Past performance is assuredly no guarantee of future results, however. The Department’s work will have to remain aligned not only with the evolving mandates of the Organization, but must also be constantly aware of the expectations they generate. Its success will always be measured by how convincingly it tells the United Nations story and how well it connects with its constituents: Member States, media, civil society and the public at large. To ensure that this connection is maintained and enhanced, the Department will continue to apply clearly measurable indicators of achievement to evaluate its future performance. By reaffirming their support for the work of the Department and the strategic directions it has taken, Member States can play a key role in making the Department of Public Information the true public voice of the United Nations.   sss1 \* MERGEFORMAT A/61/216 sss1 \* MERGEFORMAT A/61/216 FooterJN \* MERGEFORMAT 06-45405 \* MERGEFORMAT 20 \* MERGEFORMAT 19 FooterJN \* MERGEFORMAT 06-45405 United Nations A/61/216 General Assembly Distr.: General 2 August 2006 Original: English jobn \* MERGEFORMAT 06-45405 (E) 250806 Barcode \* MERGEFORMAT *0645405* Messages No. 1 No. 2 No. 3 No. 4 Number of articles Message pick-up Total number of visitors to the Cyberschoolbus from February to June in 2005 and 2006 Word.Document.8 \s No. of visitors Year Guided tours traffic (2000-2005) MSGraph.Chart.8 \s Number of visitors