MADRID, Nov 26 (IPS) – Federico Mayor Zaragoza, chair of the IPS Board of Directors, and Soraya Rodriguez, Spain’s Secretary of State for International Cooperation, representing that country’s Foreign Ministry, signed an agreement for media coverage of development-related issues Wednesday.

In the signing ceremony, Mayor Zaragoza underscored “the media’s role in reporting on concrete actions carried out in the field of development aid, in bringing visibility to what is invisible — especially in a context in which it is not clear that development aid will grow — and in bringing to the attention of the public to what extent government commitments (to promote development) have or have not been fulfilled.”

“IPS (Inter Press Service) can play a central role in this respect,” added Mayor Zaragoza-, “given its lengthy experience in covering issues related to human rights, development aid, and the south-south and south-north dialogue, in the context of the paradigm shift that Spain’s development aid has undergone in the past few years, when it has become a priority.”

Rodriguez said she was confident that the agreement would help achieve greater dissemination of news related to development aid, at the international level.

The agreement entails training activities and dialogue between journalists from the industrialised North and the developing South; analysis of media coverage; interaction among the different public operators, reporters, and representatives of civil society and academia in the area of development-oriented communication; and the strengthening of reporting on global issues like poverty, sustainable development, civil society, globalisation and its effects on poor countries, human rights and gender problems.

The project’s top-priority geographic areas are Latin America, the Maghreb, the Middle and Near East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific region, and Central and Eastern Europe.