The core business of the IPS news
agency is reporting and analysis about events
and global processes affecting the economic,
social and political development of peoples
and nations, especially in the South.
IPS carries out communication
projects and programmes that are both relevant
to this core business and support the overall
mission of IPS. Most activities are in the fields
of training, information exchange and the creation
of information networks, and are developed and
implemented in a multi-media framework.
Projects and programmes
can provide resources to:
- Offer skills and issue training
for IPS reporters and other journalists;
- Increase the depth or range
of reporting opportunities on specific issues;
- Reach new and bigger markets
and constituencies through targeted and innovative
multimedia products; and
- Strengthen links with NGOs
and build NGO capacity by helping them strengthen
their advocacy skills through media outreach,
and by encouraging journalists to make greater
use of NGO sources for background and analysis.
Current priority themes
for the development of projects and programmes
include:
- Gender
- Globalisation, Other Worlds
and Other Movements
- Human Rights and Governance
- Interconnectivity and the Information
Society
- Migrations and the Impacts
of Globalisation
- Peace, Conflict and the Unipolar
world, Dialogue among Civilisations
- Sustainable Development
Projects and programmes are
carried out at the international, regional and
sub-regional levels, and almost always involve
other partners, often from media and civil society.
Extra private, governmental and inter-governmental
funding is raised to support project and programme
implementation.
Training is an important dimension
of many IPS projects and programmes. Journalists
from the IPS network, and from other media,
have the 
opportunity
to develop or enhance their reporting skills
related to particular themes. IPS strives to
ensure that its training translates directly
into better copy.
Some training programs are conducted
face-to-face, providing a good opportunity for
journalists to work directly with editors, their
peers and invited experts from civil society
and other sectors. IPS also conducts distance
training, using its communication network to
train journalists on the job.
Training to keep pace with developments
in the communication field is essential for
IPS as it transforms into a multi-media communication
agency.
Ongoing and recent examples of
IPS multi-media projects and programmes include:
- Tierramérica
Tierramérica is the principal
communications platform about environment and
sustainable development in Latin America and
the Caribbean. Tierramérica’s multi-media
products, targeting opinion leaders and decision-makers
in the public and private arenas, and civil
society, seek to play a role in national policy
and to raise public awareness about the environment
and sustainable development. Tierramérica
is a cooperative project of the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) and the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with IPS
serving as the executive agency. Outputs include:
a weekly ‘Tierramérica page’
published in 22 newspapers in 12 countries;
an interactive web site at www.tierramerica.net;
a weekly radio programme broadcast by community,
commercial and cultural stations; news bulletins
to thousands of development and environment
policy and decision-makers; CDs, books and theme-specific
publications.
- Gender Rights and HIV/AIDS
Recognising
that gender is a key factor in understanding
and tackling the causes and impacts of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic, IPS launched a multi-media programme
in June 2001. With a core product of news features
researched and written by the professional network
of IPS journalists in every region of the world,
the work further encompasses training for journalists,
networking with civil society and producing
a training manual for the media, along with
the wide dissemination of the information to
media and civil society, particularly in Africa,
the continent most affected by the pandemic.
The Gender, HIV/AIDS and Rights training manual
for the media published in 2003 is available
for download at http://www.ipsnews.net/hivaids.asp.
- TerraViva Conference
Newspapers
Terra
Viva, the IPS conference newspaper was launched
at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro,
and has since made regular appearances at the
major U.N. conferences, and at other civil society
meetings and events.
The most recent TerraViva conference newspapers
were published in Geneva during the U.N.
World Summit on the Information Society in December
2003, and in Mumbai during the
World
Social Forum in January 2004.
TerraViva provides delegates,
officials, observers and civil society groups
with independent, balanced, issue-oriented coverage
from conference rooms, official and unofficial
negotiations, as well as external and sideline
developments. The result is that TerraViva has
a well-earned reputation as a reliable source
of professional news and information and for
shaping viewpoints.
Through its links to hundreds of media organisations
throughout the world and to its much-visited
web site, IPS has also been an invaluable source
for disseminating the message of conferences
to a huge global audience.
Other versions of TerraViva circulate
as a daily or weekly bulletin in the United
Nations, the European Union, and in Africa,
with a special edition for the Spanish-speaking
world. (http://www.ipsdailyjournal.org/
and http://www.ipsterraviva.net)
This media fellowship programme,
run by IPS Asia-Pacific, seeks to provide journalists
with the six countries of Greater Mekong Subregion
(GMS) the resources, opportunities and skills
to develop coverage of cross-border issues in
this increasingly integrated part of Asia. This
programme, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation
(South-east Asia), aims to develop the capacities
of journalists from China, Burma, Thailand,
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia using the experience
and expertise of IPS as a news agency specialising
on issues relevant to developing countries.
For further information
contact headquarters@ips.org
