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Women Make the News 2016: One Step Forward for Gender Equality in Media
From 1 March to 5 May, UNESCO in collaboration with the Global Alliance on Media and Gender launches the Women Make the News 2016 initiative under the theme Gender Equality in the Media is Sustainable Development鈥: Gender Equality in the Media by 2030, in commemoration of the International Women鈥檚 Day (8 March).
Stakeholders alongside UNESCO and other international development organizations have been striving to eliminate gender inequality for decades. Nevertheless, the achievement of real gender equality in the media is facing serious situation in terms of diminishing finances and the slow rate of change.
In 2015, Women Make the News initiative called on media partners to ensure that at least 30% of all sources interviewed in the news are women. Sixteen organizations pledged to this call.
This year, Women Make the News continues this feature, in solidarity with the Women on the Homepage initiative, and among others, invites international development organizations as well as private corporations to announce or submit an initiative/commitment for gender equality in media, and media practitioners to produce special supplements or programme on related topics during the period for WMN, from 1 March to 5 May.
Public policies based on international standards are crucial to reaching gender equality in the media. It is for this reason that UNESCO launched last year the Global Survey on Gender and Media focusing on government actions. Close to 40 countries have responded. Read more in the preliminary report.
The survey will be open until the 3rd May 2016. UNESCO invites all governments who want to participate to contact us.
to visit the official website of the Women Make the News 2016 for further information about the initiative.
Women Make the News launched every year in early March since 2004 is an UNESCO-lead annual initiative calling for gender equality in media. This year鈥檚 WMN is born in the first year of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and on the heels of historical consensus reached on the Geneva Framework on Gender and Media International Development Cooperation. Its theme echoes with the SDGs as well as this year鈥檚 International Women鈥檚 Day whose theme, 鈥淧lanet 50鈥50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality鈥.
