Informed Societies and Integrity in Public Information: Opportunities for Building Back Better and SDG Success with Libraries
In cooperation with the UN Library in New York, IFLA is organising a workshop in the margins of the High-Level Political Forum on 11 July, 13:15-14:30 New York time. Invited library participants from around the world will exchange with diplomats and UN officials in order to identify key themes and issues around how to ensure informed societies and uphold integrity in support of the SDGs.
This workshop will explore trends affecting the creation, sharing and application of information and integrity, and their implications for delivering the SDGs and the objectives of Our Common Agenda. With a particular emphasis on libraries as a key infrastructure for this, it will look to identify key recommendations and questions for the future.
Achieving the SDGs depends on access to reliable information – public and otherwise – and the ability to use it. Without it, everyone – from the individual to the global community – is deprived of the ability to participate in governance and democratic life, to make the right decisions, to innovate, and to enjoy their rights to science, culture and beyond.
Governments and citizens alike therefore have a major interest in ensuring that there is a solid infrastructure for supporting this, if we are to build back better from COVID-19, while advancing the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Libraries are of course a key part of this, engaged in everything from supporting evidence-based policy-making to developing media and information literacy skills on the ground.
This workshop will provide a space to explore current trends that impact on access to information and integrity, in particular in the light of the pandemic, in order to develop a short set of ideas and recommendations. These in turn will support reflection on what could go into a comprehensive approach to promoting informed societies in the remaining years of the 2030 Agenda and the Secretary-General’s call for a global code of conduct that promotes integrity in public information.