On June 14, the Russian Committee of the Information for All Programme (IFAP) held an extraordinary meeting chaired by Tatiana Dovgalenko, Secretary General of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO. Representatives of relevant institutions, regional authorities, leading Russian universities, non-governmental organizations, and the media became its new members.
In her welcoming speech, Tatiana Dovgalenko stressed that, taking into account the real contribution of Russia to the organization of numerous international events, it is one of the key donors of the Programme, and since most of the Committee’s conferences lead to the development of final declarations and practical recommendations, Russia is a recognized intellectual leader of IFAP, playing the main role in its international activities.
The participants observed a minute of silence in memory of Evgeny Kuzmin, a longstanding Chairman of the IFAP Russian Committee, Vice Chair of the IFAP Intergovernmental Council, and Chair of the IFAP Multilingualism Working Group. Kuzmin’s creative energy and significant expert contribution enabled setting a very high standard for the Russian IFAP team, which must also be met in the future.
To ensure continuity in the work of the Russian IFAP team, Sergey Bakeykin was elected Chairman of the Committee as he was Kuzmin’s right-hand man since 2006. Anastasia Parshakova, who had also been a member of the Committee for many years, was appointed Vice Chair.
The newly elected leaders of the Committee presented to the audience the main achievements of Russia in the Programme. As Sergey Bakeykin noted, once UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova had named the Russian IFAP Committee the best in the world.
There was an active discussion on the most topical issues concerning the Programme, including the development of information literacy and ethics, preservation and accessibility of information, and the promotion of multilingualism in cyberspace. At the end of the meeting, the participants discussed the Committee’s work plan for the future and outlined a list of priority activities for this year and the next one.
The Russian IFAP Committee is one of the drivers of the complex and multidimensional cooperation between Russia and UNESCO, and undoubtedly, it is to accomplish many new promising initiatives and projects.
Konstantin Emelin