Right to Know Day – Urge the UN to enshrine the importance of free expression in the Post-2015 Agenda

Today, 28 September 2014, is International Right to Know Day. To acknowledge this, IFLA has signed an ARTICLE 19 joint statement urging the Secretary General of the United Nations to highlight the importance of the right to information, free media, and the protection of civil society organisations’ ability to organise and engage in his upcoming stocktaking report on the Sustainable Development Goals to the General Assembly.

At the end of this year, the UN Secretary General will publish a synthesis report of three global processes that have contributed to the establishment of the Post-2015 framework.

For the last year, IFLA has actively advocated for the inclusion of access to information in the Agenda for the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, yet there is still work still to be done. Right to Know Day coincides with the start of a year-long negotiation process to determine the Post-2015 agenda. States will be discussing the framework that will be the foundation for international policy commitments for the next fifteen years and more. They will decide on goals that will galvanise efforts to improve the daily lives of vulnerable and marginalised people, and set out targets that will focus the attention of donors striving for sustainable development.

See also the work IFLA has already been doing in the Post-2015 Development Framework.