Twenty-nine governments, gathered at the 2025 Paris Peace Forum, including five Heads of State and Government, have committed to defending access to trustworthy and reliable information worldwide. The commitment was made during the conference on Information Integrity and Independent Media, a ministerial event co-organised by the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM) and the Forum on Information and Democracy (FID).
Representatives from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe warned that independent and reliable information needs sustained public support to survive rapid technological and commercial disruption.
“We are in a crisis that is actually multiple crises,” said President Emmanuel Macron, referring to the financial crisis in the media, the degeneration of information integrity, and the lack of regulation of the large technology platforms. He called for stronger regulation and innovation. “We must put in place systems that, in the life of our democracies, guarantee the integrity of our electoral processes. That is exactly the role of journalists; it is to them that we must restore the heart of this democratic life,” he said.
During the conference, government leaders underscored that access to reliable information is essential to human progress and welfare. They made concrete commitments to put principles into action by supporting independent media as a first line of defence against disinformation and manipulation of information.
“Peace cannot survive without information integrity and democracies cannot survive without those who protect it, journalists, citizens and leaders alike,” said President Maia Sandu of Moldova.
Responding to the increasing pressure on independent media and manipulation of other sources of information, representatives of 29 countries adopted the Paris Declaration on Multilateral Action for Information Integrity and Independent Media, acknowledging the need to fund access to reliable information as a global public good. Also, all countries reiterated their commitment to ongoing engagement in defence of information integrity.
At the conference, the Forum on Information and Democracy also announced the creation of the International Coordination Group on Information Integrity, an informal gathering of representatives of international organisations and initiatives working on related topics.
The first participating organisations include the Council of Europe Division on Freedom of Expression and CDMSI (Steering Committee on Media and Information Society), the Forum on Information and Democracy, the International Fund for Public Interest Media, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (Representative of Freedom of the Media), the International Organisation of La Francophonie, the Secretariat of the Open Government Partnership, the United Nations, and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
Participating countries also announced their strengthened commitment to the Partnership for Information and Democracy, which was initiated in 2018 at the Paris Peace Forum, reaffirming the democratic principles for the global information and communication space.
The Forum on Information and Democracy also announced the creation of its consultative committee composed of Signatory States, including Armenia, Brazil, Chile, France, Luxembourg, Portugal and Ukraine.
Countries signing the declaration also endorsed the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM) as the financial arm of the renewed and enlarged coalition, and a first-of-its-kind multilateral organisation dedicated to defending access to reliable information at scale. The International Fund provides funding through grant support to independent media in low- and middle-income countries. France, a founding contributor to the Fund, also confirmed IFPIM as a hosted International Organisation with headquarters in Paris as of May 2025.
Ghana, which hosts the International Fund’s Regional Headquarters in Africa, also announced new financial support, becoming the first African country to contribute to IFPIM.
The Fund raised USD 62 million (EUR 53 million) between its launch in November 2022 and 2025. As the Fund embarks on its next strategic phase, ten donors have committed to financing the expansion of the International Fund, and more than USD 25 million (EUR 21.5 million) in new funding has been secured in recent months for 2026 onwards. This includes announcements at the conference of an initial contribution of EUR 10 million from France for 2026-2028, as well as support from Ghana, Luxembourg, Spain, and Switzerland.
The International Fund plans to raise and disburse USD 150 million (EUR 130 million) over the coming three years to provide flexible core funding to independent media in 50 countries. Since it was launched, the Fund has seen urgent demand for support by media organisations that far exceeds available resources; an acute crisis for independent media that risks leaving societies without access to trustworthy, essential information. The Fund is making an all-out effort to raise the funding needed over the coming months.
Meanwhile, launched in 2022, the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM) is a multilateral initiative designed to support independent public interest media in low- and middle-income settings. IFPIM is an International Organisation hosted by France and Ghana, and supported by 19 governments and philanthropic donors. The International Fund provides grants to media organisations and ecosystem-level interventions across four focus regions: Africa and the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe. The International Fund’s mission is to ensure that people worldwide live in healthy information ecosystems, with access to journalism, providing their societies with information of public interest. To date, IFPIM has supported more than 120 media organisations in 31 countries. Contact Rosie Vanek, rvanek@ifpim.org, for more information.
The Forum on Information and Democracy facilitates the implementation of the International Partnership for Information and Democracy, launched by France in 2019 and endorsed by 56 Signatory States worldwide. It was founded by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and a group of leading institutions on digital rights, media and human rights. Contact Camille Grenier, cgrenier@informationdemocracy.org, for more information.
The Paris Peace Forum is a platform to originate, shape, and share multi-actor responses towards global peace and sustainable prosperity. By convening key decision-makers and fostering collaboration between governments, international organisations, businesses, and civil society, the Forum ensures that diplomacy is not just discussed but reinvented to meet the demands of a changing world. For more information, visit parispeaceforum.org or contact Evan O’Connell, evan.oconnell@parispeaceforum.org.
