The past few decades have seen a global revolution in the ways in which people access, consume and share information. New challenges and opportunities brought about by these transformations now intersect with longer-standing challenges to media pluralism, freedom and independence. Featuring thirteen new country case studies, this report highlights the diverse scope, successes and lessons of UNDP’s recent engagement with the media for promoting inclusive governance, sustainable development and peace.
Introduction
Purpose of this report
This report features 13 case studies that together highlight the range and impact of UNDP’s engagement with the media for the purpose of achieving development outcomes.1 These examples vary widely in scope and aim: from an election media monitoring initiative in Georgia to an initiative promoting local empowerment through community radio in remote areas of Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR); from engagement with media for peacebuilding in Lebanon to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) awareness campaigns implemented in partnership with the private sector in Brazil.
By showcasing successful examples of UNDP’s latest media initiatives, this report is meant to serve several purposes. First, it seeks to demonstrate that, across development contexts, UNDP has increasingly identified media engagement as a priority for its policy and programmes. Indeed, the case studies show that there is growing recognition that engaging the media has become indispensable for making progress on inclusive governance, peace and development outcomes and ultimately for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Second, the report seeks to outline UNDP’s comparative advantage and unique role in this area of work as well as to spark new approaches on media engagement and build new partnerships with media actors, the private sector, civil society and governments. This report therefore builds on broader UNDP efforts at promoting the media’s role in development, including an expert roundtable hosted by the Oslo Governance Centre in November 2017 on the role of media in promoting peace in conflict-prone settings.2 It will serve therefore as a contribution to a new UNDP workstream aimed at promoting more informed societies and to help guide UNDP’s ongoing commitments to support the role of free and independent media globally, including as a member of the United Nations (UN) Focal Point Network for the Implementation of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity.
Finally, by delving into the challenges and lessons learned across UNDP’s initiatives, the report seeks to contribute to broader debates among a range of stakeholders on how to design more effective and sustainable policies and programmes to support the roles of the media, which can better meet the needs and challenges of today’s complex media ecosystems.
There are many more UNDP media initiatives than those that could be featured in this report. In order to showcase more of this variety, interspersed throughout the report are “glimpses from elsewhere” sections, which offer snapshot summaries of additional UNDP media initiatives being implemented worldwide.