The United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) led initiative, Women Make the News (WMN), will take place from March 8 to April 30, 2015 in Paris, France. This program is launched annually on the March 8, the occasion of the International Women’s Day. WMN is a global initiative which aims at fixing global attention on an issue relating to gender equality in and through the media, driving debate and encouraging action-oriented solutions until global objectives are met.
To commemorate the International Women’s Day, UNESCO will be joining forces with the Global Alliance on Media and Gender to launch the Women Make the News 2015 under the theme, “*Yes we must! Reaching Gender Equality in the Media by 2030*”.
This year’s theme is an echo of Women Make the News 2014, *Advancing Global Partnerships to Achieving Gender Equality in and through Media*. UNESCO and its partners are determined to keep up the momentum started by the pioneering Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMAG) and to highlight gender and media in the Beijing+20 Review process.
Participants to be present at the event include: editors-in-chief of newspapers, radio, television on and offline to join UNESCO’s initiative, and to produce special supplements/programme on these topics and/or to entrust women journalists and reporters with editorial responsibility for the newsroom for a limited period over the duration of the WMN initiative, from March 1 to May 5, encompassing the International Women’s Day (March 8) and the World Press Freedom Day (May 3).
The WMN 2015 advocacy efforts will also continue to push for change and will include the following features: Promote an increase in female sources interviewed in the news to at least 30%; Invite international development organizations as well as private corporations to pledge to be a part of a donor framework to support the activities of GAMAG; Strengthen cooperation with our media partners and their role in GAMAG; and Shine the spotlight on the necessity of partnerships to achieve the objectives of the Media and Gender critical area of concern of the Beijing Declaration.
