United Nations Public Information Policies and Activities

A/RES/61/121[B]View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 34 Questions relating to information, published in 2007.

What other versions does this mandate have?

25 versions · 1976–2018

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/73/102[B]

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2018	A/RES/73/102[B]	United Nations public information policies and activities	—	—
2017	A/RES/72/90 [B]	United Nations public information policies and activities	—	—
2016	A/RES/71/101 [B]	United Nations public information policies and activities	—	—
2015	A/RES/70/93[B]	United Nations public information policies and activities	—	—
2014	A/RES/69/96[B]	United Nations public information policies and activities	—	—

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

44 reports · 2002–2019

Year	Symbol	Title	Mandate resolution
2019	A/74/283	Questions relating to information report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/73/102[B]
2019	A/AC.198/2019/2	Activities of the Department of Global Communications strategic communications services : report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/73/102[B]
2019	A/AC.198/2019/3	Activities of the Department of Global Communications news services : report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/73/102[B]
2019	A/AC.198/2019/4	Activities of the Department of Global Communications outreach and knowledge services : report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/73/102[B]
2018	A/73/288	Questions relating to information report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/72/90 [B]

What’s in this document?

99 operative paragraphs

A/RES/61/121 [B]

B

I.Introduction

Reaffirms its resolution 13 (I), in which it established the Department of Public Information, and all other relevant resolutions of the General Assembly related to the activities of the Department, and requests the Secretary-General, in respect of the public information policies and activities of the United Nations, to continue to implement fully the recommendations contained in paragraph 2 of its resolution 48/44 B of 10 December 1993 and other mandates as established by the General Assembly;

Also reaffirms that the United Nations remains the indispensable foundation of a peaceful and just world and that its voice must be heard in a clear and effective manner, and emphasizes the essential role of the Department of Public Information in this context, the activities of which should be so organized and directed as to promote to the greatest possible extent an informed understanding of the work and purposes of the United Nations among the peoples of the world;

Stresses the importance of the clear and timely provision of information by the Secretariat to Member States, upon their request, within the framework of existing mandates and procedures;

Reaffirms the central role of the Committee on Information in United Nations public information policies and activities, including the prioritization of those activities, and decides that recommendations relating to the programme of the Department of Public Information shall originate, to the extent possible, in the Committee and shall be considered by the Committee;

Requests the Department of Public Information, following the priorities laid down by the General Assembly in its resolution 59/275 of 23 December 2004, and guided by the United Nations Millennium Declaration⁶ to pay particular attention to such major issues as the eradication of poverty, conflict prevention, sustainable development, human rights, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and the needs of the African continent;

⁶See resolution 55/2.

Also requests the Department of Public Information to pay particular attention to progress in implementing the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration, and the outcomes of the major related United Nations summits and conferences in carrying out its activities;

Reaffirms the need to enhance the technological infrastructure of the Department of Public Information on a continuous basis in order to widen its outreach and improve the United Nations website;

Recognizes the important work carried out by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and its collaboration with news agencies and broadcasting organizations in developing countries in disseminating information on priority issues, and encourages continued collaboration between the Department of Public Information and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in the promotion of culture and in the fields of education and communication, bridging the existing gap between the developed and the developing countries;

II.General activities of the Department of Public Information

Notes the report of the Secretary-General on the activities of the Department of Public Information⁷ and requests the Secretary-General to continue reporting to the Committee on Information on the activities of the Department at successive sessions;

⁷A/AC.198/2006/5.

Acknowledges that the Department of Public Information has concluded its collaborative project with the Office of Internal Oversight Services on the systematic evaluation of public information products and activities, and notes with appreciation the report of the Secretary-General on the final outcome of this three-year project;⁸

⁸A/AC.198/2006/4 and Corr.1.

Requests the Department of Public Information, while acknowledging its commitment to a culture of evaluation, to continue to evaluate its products and activities with the objective of improving their effectiveness, including through interdepartmental consultations;

Reaffirms that the Department of Public Information is the focal point for information policies of the United Nations and the primary news centre for information about the United Nations, its activities and those of the Secretary-General;

Also reaffirms the importance of more effective coordination between the Department of Public Information and the Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and requests the Secretary-General to ensure consistency in the messages of the Organization;

Further reaffirms that the Department of Public Information must prioritize its work programme while respecting existing mandates and in line with regulation 5.6 of the Regulations and Rules Governing Programme Planning, the Programme Aspects of the Budget, the Monitoring of Implementation and the Methods of Evaluation,⁹ to focus its message and better concentrate its efforts and, as a function of performance management, to match its programmes with the needs of its target audiences, on the basis of improved feedback and evaluation mechanisms;

⁹ST/SGB/2000/8.

Notes with appreciation the efforts of the Department of Public Information to continue to publicize the work and decisions of the General Assembly, requests the Department to continue to enhance its working relationship with the Office of the President of the General Assembly and requests the Secretary-General to report thereon to the Committee on Information at its twenty-ninth session;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to exert all efforts to ensure that publications and other information services of the Secretariat, including the United Nations website and the United Nations News Service, contain comprehensive, objective and equitable information about the issues before the Organization and that they maintain editorial independence, impartiality, accuracy and full consistency with resolutions and decisions of the General Assembly;

Requests the Department of Public Information to ensure that United Nations publications are produced in a cost-effective manner and to continue to coordinate closely with all other entities, including all other departments of the Secretariat and funds and programmes of the United Nations system, in order to avoid duplication, within their respective mandates, in the issuance of United Nations publications;

Emphasizes that the Department of Public Information should maintain and improve its activities in the areas of special interest to developing countries and, where appropriate, other countries with special needs, and that the activities of the Department should contribute to bridging the existing gap between the developing and the developed countries in the crucial field of public information and communications;

Also emphasizes that the Secretary-General should continue to strengthen the coordination between the Department of Public Information and all other entities, including all other departments of the Secretariat and funds and programmes of the United Nations system, in the context of the client-oriented approach of the Department, which should identify target audiences and develop information programmes and media strategies for priority issues, and emphasizes that public information capacities and activities in other departments should function under the guidance of the Department;

Notes with appreciation the continued efforts of the Department of Public Information in issuing daily press releases, and requests the Department to continue providing this service to both Member States and representatives of the media, while considering possible means of improving their production process and streamlining their format, structure and length, keeping in mind the views of Member States;

Also notes with appreciation the efforts of the Department of Public Information to work at the local level with other organizations and bodies of the United Nations system to enhance the coordination of their communication activities, and requests the Secretary-General to report to the Committee on Information at its twenty-ninth session on progress achieved in this regard and on the activities of the United Nations Communications Group;

Calls upon the Department of Public Information to continue to examine its policies and activities regarding the durable preservation of its radio, television and photographic archives, to take action, within existing resources, to ensure that such archives are preserved and are accessible and to report to the Committee on Information at its twenty-ninth session;

Multilingualism and public information

Emphasizes the importance of making appropriate use of all the official languages of the United Nations in all the activities of the Department of Public Information, including in presentations to the Committee on Information, with the aim of eliminating the disparity between the use of English and the five other official languages;

Also emphasizes the importance of ensuring the full, equitable treatment of all the official languages of the United Nations in all the activities of the Department of Public Information and, in this regard, reaffirms its request to the Secretary-General to ensure that the Department has appropriate staffing capacity in all the official languages of the United Nations to undertake all its activities;

Stresses the importance of fully implementing its resolution 52/214 of 22 December 1997, in section C of which it requested the Secretary-General to ensure that the texts of all new public documents in all six official languages and information materials of the United Nations are made available daily through the United Nations website and are accessible to Member States without delay;

Welcomes the ongoing efforts of the Department of Public Information to enhance multilingualism in its activities, and requests the Department to continue its endeavours in this regard;

Reiterates paragraph 4 of section C of its resolution 52/214, and requests the Secretary-General to continue towards completion of the task of uploading all important older United Nations documents on the United Nations website in all six official languages on a priority basis, so that these archives are also available to Member States through that medium;

Reaffirms that it is important that the Secretary-General include in future programme budget proposals for the Department of Public Information the importance of using all six official languages in its activities;

Welcomes the work done by the network of United Nations information centres in favour of the publication of United Nations information materials and the translation of important documents in languages other than the United Nations official languages, with a view to reaching the widest possible spectrum of audiences and extending the United Nations message to all the corners of the world in order to strengthen international support for the activities of the Organization;

Bridging the digital divide

Recalls with satisfaction General Assembly resolution 60/252 of 27 March 2006, in which it endorsed the Tunis Commitment and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society¹⁰ and proclaimed 17 May annual World Information Society Day, and also recalls the adoption of the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action¹¹ at the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, held in Geneva from 10 to 12 December 2003, and in this regard requests the Department of Public Information to contribute to the celebration of this event and to play a role in raising awareness of the possibilities that the use of the Internet and other information and communication technologies can bring to societies and economies, as well as of ways to bridge the digital divide;

¹⁰See A/60/687.

¹¹See A/C.2/59/3.

Calls upon the Department of Public Information to contribute to raising the awareness of the international community of the importance of the implementation of the outcome documents of the World Summit on the Information Society;

Network of United Nations information centres

Emphasizes the importance of the network of United Nations information centres in enhancing the public image of the United Nations and in disseminating messages on the United Nations to local populations, especially in developing countries;

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General on the further rationalization of the network of United Nations information centres,¹² and, in this regard, recognizes the constraints of further regionalization as described in paragraph 25 of the report;

¹²A/AC.198/2005/3.

Stresses the importance of rationalizing the network of United Nations information centres, and, in this regard, requests the Secretary-General to continue to make proposals in this direction, including through the redeployment of resources where necessary, and to report to the Committee on Information at its twenty-ninth session;

Reaffirms that rationalization of United Nations information centres must be carried out on a case-by-case basis in consultation with all concerned Member States in which existing information centres are located, the countries served by those information centres and other interested countries in the region, taking into consideration the distinctive characteristics of each region;

Recognizes that the network of United Nations information centres, especially in developing countries, should continue to enhance its impact and activities, including through strategic communications support, and calls upon the Secretary-General to submit a report on the implementation of this approach to the Committee on Information at its twenty-ninth session;

Stresses the importance of taking into account the special needs and requirements of developing countries in the field of information and communications technology for the effective flow of information in those countries;

Also stresses that the Department of Public Information, through the network of United Nations information centres, should continue to promote public awareness of and mobilize support for the work of the United Nations at the local level, bearing in mind that information in local languages has the strongest impact on local populations;

Further stresses the importance of efforts to strengthen the outreach activities of the United Nations to those Member States remaining outside the network of United Nations information centres, and encourages the Secretary-General, within the context of rationalization, to extend the services of the network of United Nations information centres to those Member States;

Stresses that the Department of Public Information should continue to review the allocation of both staff and financial resources to the United Nations information centres in developing countries, emphasizing the needs of the least developed countries;

Encourages the network of United Nations information centres to continue to develop web pages in local languages, also encourages the Department of Public Information to provide resources and technical facilities, in particular to those information centres whose web pages are not yet operational, and further encourages host countries to respond to the needs of the information centres;

Takes note of the proposal by the Secretary-General to work closely with the Governments concerned to explore the possibility of identifying rent-free premises, while taking into account the economic condition of the host countries and bearing in mind that such support should not be a substitute for the full allocation of financial resources for the information centres in the context of the programme budget of the United Nations;

Also takes note of the report of the Secretary-General containing the discussion regarding the creation of a United Nations information centre in Luanda¹³ to address the special needs of Portuguese-speaking African countries, welcomes the offer made by the Government of Angola to host the centre as part of the network of United Nations information centres by providing rent-free premises, and encourages the Secretary-General, within the context of rationalization, to take all necessary measures to accommodate those needs;

¹³Ibid., para. 40.

III.Strategic communications services

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General on the activities of the Department of Public Information6 and, in this context, reaffirms that the Department of Public Information is the principal department responsible for the implementation of information strategies, as mandated;

Reaffirms the role of the strategic communications services in devising and disseminating United Nations messages by developing communications strategies, in close collaboration with the substantive departments, United Nations funds and programmes and the specialized agencies, in full compliance with the legislative mandates;

Promotional campaigns

Recognizes that promotional campaigns aimed at supporting special sessions and international conferences of the United Nations are part of the core responsibility of the Department of Public Information, welcomes the efforts of the Department to examine creative ways in which it can organize and implement these campaigns in partnership with the substantive departments concerned, using the United Nations Millennium Declaration5 as its guide, and requests the Department to pay particular attention to progress in implementing the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration, and the outcomes of the major related United Nations summits and conferences in carrying out its activities;

Appreciates the work of the Department of Public Information in promoting, through its campaigns, issues of importance to the international community, such as United Nations reform, the eradication of poverty, conflict prevention, sustainable development, disarmament, decolonization, human rights, including the rights of women and children and of persons with disabilities, strategic coordination in humanitarian relief, especially in natural disasters and other crises, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases, the needs of the African continent, combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, as well as dialogue among civilizations, the culture of peace and tolerance and the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, and requests the Department, in cooperation with the countries concerned and with the relevant organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, to continue to take appropriate measures to enhance world public awareness of these and other important global issues;

Invites the Department of Public Information to continue to work within the United Nations Communications Group to coordinate the preparation and implementation of communication strategies with the heads of information of the agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations system, and requests the Secretary-General to report to the Committee on Information at its twenty-ninth session on the activities of the Group;

Stresses the need to continue the renewed emphasis in support of Africa’s development, in particular by the Department of Public Information, in order to promote awareness in the international community of the nature of the critical economic and social situation in Africa and of the priorities of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development;¹⁴

¹⁴A/57/304, annex.

Role of the Department of Public Information in United Nations peacekeeping

Requests the Secretariat to continue to ensure the involvement of the Department of Public Information from the planning stage of future peacekeeping operations through interdepartmental consultations and coordination with other departments of the Secretariat, in particular with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations;

Stresses the importance of enhancing the public information capacity of the Department of Public Information in the field of peacekeeping operations and its role, in close cooperation with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, in the selection process of public information staff for United Nations peacekeeping operations or missions, and, in this regard, invites the Department of Public Information to second public information staff who have the necessary skills to fulfil the tasks of the operations or missions, taking into account the principle of equitable geographical distribution in accordance with Chapter XV, Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, and to consider views expressed, especially by host countries, when appropriate, in this regard;

Emphasizes the importance of the peacekeeping gateway on the United Nations website, and requests the Department of Public Information to continue its efforts in supporting the peacekeeping missions to further develop their websites;

Requests the Department of Public Information and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to continue their cooperation in raising awareness of the new realities, successes and challenges faced by peacekeeping operations, especially multidimensional and complex ones, and of the recent surge in United Nations peacekeeping activities, and welcomes efforts by the two Departments to develop and implement a comprehensive communications strategy on current challenges facing United Nations peacekeeping;

Also requests the Department of Public Information and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to continue to cooperate in implementing an effective outreach programme to explain the policy of the Organization against sexual exploitation and abuse;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to report to the Committee on Information at its successive sessions on the role of the Department of Public Information in United Nations peacekeeping operations;

Role of the Department of Public Information in strengthening dialogue among civilizations and the culture of peace as means of enhancing understanding among nations

Recalls its resolutions¹⁵ on dialogue among civilizations and the culture of peace and requests the Department of Public Information, while ensuring the pertinence and relevance of subjects for promotional campaigns under this issue, to continue to provide the necessary support for the dissemination of information pertaining to dialogue among civilizations and the culture of peace, as well as the initiative on the Alliance of Civilizations and to take due steps in fostering the culture of dialogue among civilizations and promoting religious and cultural understanding via all mass media, such as the Internet, print, radio and television, and requests the Secretary-General to submit a report in this regard to the Committee on Information at its successive sessions;

¹⁵Resolutions 53/22 of 4 November 1998 and 55/23 of 13 November 2000 on the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations, 52/15 of 20 November 1997, by which it proclaimed 2000 the International Year for the Culture of Peace, 53/25 of 10 November 1998, by which it proclaimed the period 2001–2010 the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World, 56/6 of 9 November 2001 on the Global Agenda for Dialogue among Civilizations, and 59/142 of 15 December 2004 on the promotion of religious and cultural understanding, harmony and cooperation.

IV.News services

Stresses that the central objective of the news services implemented by the Department of Public Information is the timely delivery of accurate, objective and balanced news and information emanating from the United Nations system in all four mass media — print, radio, television and Internet — to the media and other audiences worldwide, with the overall emphasis on multilingualism, and reiterates its request to the Department to ensure that all news-breaking stories and news alerts are accurate, impartial and free of bias;

Emphasizes the importance of the Department of Public Information continuing to draw the attention of world media to stories that do not obtain prominent coverage, through the initiative entitled “Ten Stories the World Should Hear More About”;

Traditional means of communication

Stresses that radio remains one of the most cost-effective and far-reaching traditional media available to the Department of Public Information and an important instrument in United Nations activities, including development and peacekeeping, with a view to achieving a broad client base around the world;

Notes that the international radio broadcasting capacity for the United Nations is an integral part of the activities of the Department of Public Information, and requests the Secretary-General to make every effort to ensure its success and to report on its activities to the Committee on Information at its twenty-ninth session;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to make every effort to achieve parity in the six official languages in United Nations radio production;

Notes the efforts being made by the Department of Public Information to disseminate programmes directly to broadcasting stations all over the world in the six official languages, with the addition of Portuguese, as well as in other languages where possible;

Welcomes the efforts being made by the Department of Public Information to produce and disseminate television news video and feature material to broadcasters around the world through satellite distribution and web delivery;

Requests the Department of Public Information to continue building partnerships with local, national and regional broadcasters to extend the United Nations message to all the corners of the world in an accurate and impartial way, and also requests the Radio and Television Service of the Department to continue to take full advantage of the technological infrastructure made available in recent years;

United Nations website

Reaffirms that the United Nations website is an essential tool for the media, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, Member States and the general public, and, in this regard, reiterates the continued need for efforts by the Department of Public Information to maintain and improve it;

Recognizes the efforts made by the Department of Public Information to implement the basic accessibility requirements for persons with disabilities to the United Nations website, calls upon the Department to continue to work towards compliance with all levels of accessibility requirements on all pages of the website with the aim of ensuring its accessibility by persons with different kinds of disabilities, and requests the Secretary-General to report to the Committee on Information at its twenty-ninth session on progress made in this regard;

Reaffirms the need to achieve full parity among the six official languages on United Nations websites while noting with satisfaction that progress is being made to narrow the gap among different official languages on United Nations websites;

Takes note of the fact that the multilingual development and enrichment of the United Nations website has improved, although at a slower rate than expected owing to several constraints that need to be addressed, and, in this regard, requests the Department of Public Information, in coordination with content-providing offices, to improve the actions taken to achieve parity among the six official languages on the United Nations website;

Welcomes the cooperative arrangements undertaken by the Department of Public Information with academic institutions to increase the number of web pages available in some official languages, and requests the Secretary-General to explore additional cost-neutral ways to further extend these cooperative arrangements to include all the official languages of the United Nations;

Reaffirms section IX, paragraph 2, of its resolution 59/276 of 23 December 2004 on proposals to strengthen the United Nations website;

Reaffirms its request to the Secretary-General to ensure, while maintaining an up-to-date and accurate website, the adequate distribution of financial and human resources within the Department of Public Information allocated to the United Nations website among all official languages, taking into consideration the specificity of each official language on a continuous basis;

Recalls paragraph 74 of its resolution 60/109 B and, in this regard, reiterates that all content-providing offices in the Secretariat should continue their efforts to translate into all official languages all English language materials and databases posted on the United Nations website in the most practical, efficient and cost-effective manner;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to take full advantage of recent developments in information technology in order to improve, in a cost-effective manner, the expeditious dissemination of information on the United Nations, in accordance with the priorities established by the General Assembly in its resolutions and taking into account the linguistic diversity of the Organization;

Recognizes that some official languages use non-Latin and bidirectional scripts and that technological infrastructures and supportive applications in the United Nations are based on Latin script, which leads to difficulties in processing non-Latin and bidirectional scripts, and requests the Department of Public Information, in cooperation with the Information Technology Services Division of the Department of Management, to continue its efforts to ensure that technological infrastructures and supportive applications in the United Nations fully support Latin, non-Latin and bidirectional scripts in order to enhance the equality of all official languages on the United Nations website;

Notes with satisfaction that United Nations webcast services provide live video of United Nations meetings and events, which is also available in the original language in which it is delivered;

Welcomes the electronic mail-based United Nations News Service, distributed worldwide in the English and French languages through e-mail by the Department of Public Information, and requests the Department as a matter of priority to continue to examine ways to provide this service in all official languages;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to work within the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination and other appropriate inter-agency bodies to establish a United Nations gateway, an inter-agency search facility in which all entities of the United Nations system should be encouraged to participate, and requests the Secretary-General to report to the Committee on Information at its successive sessions on the activities of the High-level Committee on Management in this regard;

V.Library services

Welcomes the report of the Secretary-General entitled “Modernization and integrated management of United Nations libraries: update on new strategic directions”;¹⁶

¹⁶A/AC.198/2006/2.

Calls upon the Department of Public Information to continue to lead the Steering Committee for the Modernization and Integrated Management of United Nations Libraries, and requests the member libraries of the Steering Committee to continue to coordinate closely in the implementation of its programme of work;

Takes note of the steps taken by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the other member libraries of the Steering Committee to align their activities, services and outputs more closely with the goals, objectives and operational priorities of the Organization;

Reiterates the need to enable the provision of hard copies of library materials to Member States, and notes the efforts of the Secretary-General to enrich, on a multilingual basis, the stock of books and journals in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, including publications on peace and security and development-related issues, in order to ensure that the Library is enriched and continues to be a broadly accessible resource for information about the United Nations and its activities;

Recognizes the importance of the depository libraries in disseminating information and knowledge about United Nations activities, and, in this connection, urges the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, in its capacity as the focal point, to continue to take the initiatives necessary to strengthen such libraries by providing regional training and other assistance and by improving their role with the aim of strengthening their support to users in developing countries;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Committee on Information at its twenty-ninth session on the activities of the Steering Committee and the work of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, including on the application of measures to enhance the effectiveness of the libraries within existing legislative mandates;

Acknowledges the role of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, as part of the Outreach Division of the Department of Public Information, in enhancing knowledge-sharing and networking activities to ensure access to the vast store of United Nations knowledge by delegates, permanent missions of Member States, the Secretariat, researchers and depository libraries worldwide, and takes note of the proposal to rename the library the Dag Hammarskjöld Library and Knowledge-Sharing Centre, reflecting its new direction;

Notes the new approaches taken by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, in particular the Personal Knowledge Management initiative, to assist representatives of Member States and Secretariat staff in the use of information products and tools as a complement to the traditional training programmes;

Recalls paragraph 44 of its resolution 56/64 B of 24 December 2001, in which it welcomed the role of the Department of Public Information in fostering increased collaboration among libraries of the United Nations system;

VI.Outreach services

Acknowledges that the outreach services provided by the Department of Public Information continue to work towards promoting awareness of the role and work of the United Nations on priority issues;

Notes the importance of the continued implementation by the Department of Public Information of the ongoing programme for broadcasters and journalists from developing countries and countries with economies in transition, as mandated by the General Assembly, and requests the Department to consider how best to maximize the benefits derived from the programme by reviewing, inter alia, its duration and the number of its participants;

Welcomes the movement towards educational outreach and the orientation of the UN Chronicle, both print and online editions, and, to this end, encourages the UN Chronicle to continue to develop co-publishing partnerships, collaborative educational activities and events, including the “Unlearning Intolerance” seminar series, with civil society organizations and institutions of higher learning;

Reaffirms the important role that guided tours play as a means of reaching out to the general public, including children and students at all levels;

Welcomes the efforts undertaken by the Department of Public Information in organizing exhibitions on important United Nations-related issues within existing mandates at United Nations Headquarters and at other United Nations offices as a useful tool for reaching out to the general public;

Requests the Department of Public Information to strengthen its role as a focal point for two-way interaction with civil society relating to the priorities and concerns of the Organization;

Commends the United Nations Correspondents Association for its ongoing activities and for its Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Scholarship Fund, which sponsors journalists from developing countries to come to the United Nations Headquarters and report on the activities during the General Assembly, and urges donors to extend financial support to the Fund so that it may increase the number of such scholarships to journalists in this context;

Expresses its appreciation for the efforts and contribution of United Nations Messengers of Peace, Goodwill Ambassadors and other advocates to promote the work of the United Nations and to enhance international public awareness of its priorities and concerns, and calls upon the Department of Public Information to continue to involve them in its communications and media strategies and outreach activities;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Committee on Information at its next session on the activities being carried out by the Department of Public Information to enhance the public image of the Organization, especially where there is a component of the network of United Nations information centres;

VII.Final remarks

Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that all reports requested by the Committee on Information are submitted and issued in accordance with the legislative mandate;

Also requests the Secretary-General to report to the Committee on Information at its twenty-ninth session and to the General Assembly at its sixty-second session on the activities of the Department of Public Information and on the implementation of the recommendations contained in the present resolution;

Requests the Committee on Information to report to the General Assembly at its sixty-second session;

Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its sixty-second session the item entitled “Questions relating to information”.

Official Records of the General Assembly, Sixty-first Session, Supplement No. 21 and addendum (A/61/21 and Add.1).

A/61/216 and Corr.1.

See United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Records of the General Conference, Twenty-first Session, Belgrade, 23 September–28 October 1980, vol. l, Resolutions, sect. III.4, resolution 4/21.