Mario Lubetkin, IPS Director General met the Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Carlos Roberto Tiburcio de Oliveira, special advisor to the Brazilian Presidency General Secretariat and his country’s representative to the IPS Core Group. This was the first meeting between IPS and the Brazilian Government after the recent election of Brazil as the Chair of the IPS Core Group of Donors.

The Brazilian Government convoked an informal meeting in Rome, held on 25 and 26 November inviting South and emerging countries of the G-20, plus Venezuela and Qatar for their initiatives in the field of communication (Al-Jazeera and Telesur). The meeting was supported by IPS, and aimed to strengthen the role of information and communication as Southern and emerging countries gain space and power in the new political scenario. Participants agreed on the need to identify common areas of work in the field of information and laid out a plan for 2010 to continue this process.