IPS held its 2011 annual meetings in Helsinki, Finland from the 13th – 16th October.

A public seminar on the theme of “Migration and Communication: Re-balancing information flows and dialogue”, jointly organised with the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), took place on the morning of October 13th.

Latest estimates from IOM suggest that international migrants could number 405 million by 2050 if migration continues to grow at the same pace as during the last 20 years. In the context of these projections much of the public discourse around the issue has been negative. Read more »

Opening of the 10th Annual CIVICUS Assembly in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Credit: CIVICUS.

Montreal welcomed more than 800 civil society leaders to the 10th CIVICUS world assembly, 10 – 12th September. IPS is a longstanding member of CIVICUS and was well represented at the event – providing news coverage, participating in the debates and taking the chance to meet old and new friends and partners from civil society in all regions. Read more »

Soraya Rodríguez and Mario Lubetkin. Credit: AECID.

The meeting ‘Cooperation with the Arab world: a new scenario for communication’, held in Madrid (September 7-8, 2011) as part of the Week of Spanish Cooperation, analyzed the effects of the revolutions and process of transformation in the Arab World – Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain – on development aid. It also looked at how communication can help build bridges of understanding between citizens and institutions in the Mediterranean region. This is the second workshop organized by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID) and Inter Press Service (IPS), which brought together Spanish journalists and colleagues from other regions. Read more »

The high-level seminar on “Communication, pluralism and the role of new technologies; The Latin American scenario: a view to the future” in Montevideo, this past 24 June, was an important opportunity to debate on the many questions that have emerged about media, pluralism and democracy, the role of media in society, their relations with political power, among others, in recent years. Read more »

Francisco Moza Zapatero (AECID) and Mario Lubetkin (IPS). Credit: AECID.

Following the so called “Arab spring”, and in the midst of the ‘acampadas’, organized mass mobilizations through social networks in many Spanish cities, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) in collaboration with IPS Inter Press Service News Agency launched the book “Politics, networks and Technologies in Communications for Development”, a tour through the different visions of new technologies and their contribution to information in general and more concretely, to communication for development. Read more »