(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release: Paris, 21 April 1999 For immediate release WAN and World Bank To Hold Joint Conference The World Association of Newspapers and The World Bank will hold a ground-breaking conference on the role of the press in ensuring the effective implementation of development aid strategies, ìt was […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release:
Paris, 21 April 1999
For immediate release
WAN and World Bank To Hold Joint Conference
The World Association of Newspapers and The World Bank will hold a
ground-breaking conference on the role of the press in ensuring the
effective implementation of development aid strategies, ìt was announced
Wednesday.
The conference, which will take place in the framework of the 52nd World
Newspaper Congress and 6th World Editors Forum (13 to 16 June, Zürich,
Switzerland), will explore the role of the press in assuring that
development funds meant for poverty and disease reduction and economic
development are used in the most effective way.
A highlight of the WAN/World Bank session, to take place in Zurich on 13
June, will be a live satellite speech and interview from Washington by the
Bank’s President, James Wolfensohn.
The joint conference will examine how the media can contribute to the
success of a new Bank initiative – the Comprehensive Development Framework –
to get all development partners to coordinate their projects and tackle the
challenge of sustainable growth on a transparent and accountable basis.
“The World Bank and the World Association of Newspapers are convinced that
the press has a vital role to play in helping to ensure good governance and
transparency, in tracking the progress of development and in explaining and
disseminating information on these initiatives,” said Timothy Balding, the
WAN Director General.
Editors and publishers from many of the developing nations who are being
considered for the CDF programme will be invited to join the discussions,
together with all interested participants registered for the Congress and
Forum, the annual meetings of the world’s press organized by WAN.
The session will feature a panel discussion between World Bank officials and
journalists on how a free, independent press can make a positive
contribution to successful development and how the free flow of information
effects governance, economies and citizens.
A second panel of editors and publishers from developing countries will
analyse the opportunities provided by the new approach to development,
examine the likely obstacles, and discuss the conditions needed for the
press to play a constructive role.
The WAN/World Bank conference will be preceded by a round table meeting on
press freedom, where participants will have the opportunity to question some
of the world’s leading press freedom champions and dissidents on how to
contribute to the introduction of freedom of expression and democracy.
The Paris-based WAN, the global organisation for the newspaper industry,
defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 15,000
newspapers; its membership includes 58 national newspaper associations,
individual newspaper executives in 90 countries, 17 news agencies and seven
regional press groups.
A full programme and registration information is available from the WAN
Secretariat in Paris, or from the WAN web site at www.wan-press.org/wnc/.
