Sharjah (United Arab Emirates) was named World Book Capital for the year 2019 by the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, on the recommendation of the Advisory Committee which met at the Headquarters of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) at La Haye.

The city was selected because of the very innovative, comprehensive and inclusive nature of the application, with a community-focused activity program containing creative proposals to engage the very large migrant population.

“I applaud the nomination of Sharjah as the World Book Capital as well as the efforts undertaken by the city in order to make reading available to as many people as possible, in particular the marginalized populations, as a motor for social inclusion, creativity and dialogue” Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, declared.

With the slogan “Read – you are in Sharjah”, the program focuses on six themes: inclusivity, reading, heritage, outreach, publishing and children. Among other things there will be a conference on freedom of speech, a contest for young poets, workshops for creating Braille books and tactile books as well as many events for Sharjah’s multi-ethnic population.

The city’s objective is to foster a culture of reading in the United Arab Emirates and birth new initiatives to meet the challenge of literary creation in the area and in the rest of the Arab world.

Running parallel to this chain of events, Sharjah will also launch Sharjah Publishing City, a space entirely dedicated to publishing and printing. It will be the first place of the kind in the region, specifically developed to meet the needs of companies and institutions operating in the publishing field. Its objective is to reinforce the book industry by encouraging the widespread production and dissemination of publications in the Arab world.

The year of celebrations will start on 23 April, 2019, on the World Book and Copyright Day.

Cities designated as UNESCO World Book Capital undertake to promote books and reading and to organize activities over the year. As the nineteenth cities to bear the title since 2001, Sharjah follows Athens (2018) and Conakry (2017). Past winners include Madrid (2001), Alexandria (2002), New Delhi (2003), Anvers (2004), Montreal (2005), Turin (2006), Bogota (2007), Amsterdam(2008), Beirut (2009), Ljubljana (2010), Buenos Aires (2011), Erevan (2012), Bangkok (2013), Port Harcourt (2014), Incheon (2015), Wroclaw (2016).

The application of the city of Sharjah was accepted by an Advisory Committee, comprising representatives of the International Publisher’s Association (IPA), the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) and UNESCO.

By Editor, UNESCO
PARIS, Jun 23 2017 (UNESCO)

A new UNESCO policy paper shows that the global poverty rate could be more than halved if all adults completed secondary school. Yet, new data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) show persistently high out-of-school rates in many countries, making it likely that completion levels in education will remain well below that target for generations to come.

The paper, Reducing global poverty through universal primary and secondary education, is being released ahead of the UN High Level Political Forum (10-19 July), which will focus on poverty eradication in pursuit of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The paper demonstrates the importance of recognizing education as a core lever for ending poverty in all its forms, everywhere.

“The new analysis on education’s far-reaching benefits released today should be good news for all those working on the Sustainable Development Goal to eradicate poverty by 2030,” said Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO. “It shows that we have a concrete plan to ensure people no longer have to live on barely a few dollars a day, and that that plan has education at its heart.”

The new analysis on education’s impact on poverty by UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report team is based on the average effects of education on growth and poverty reduction in developing countries from 1965 to 2010. It shows that nearly 60 million people could escape poverty if all adults had just two more years of schooling. If all adults completed secondary education, 420 million could be lifted out of poverty, reducing the total number of poor people by more than half globally and by almost two-thirds in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Studies have shown that education has direct and indirect impacts on both economic growth and poverty. Education provides skills that boost employment opportunities and incomes while helping to protect people from socio-economic vulnerabilities. A more equitable expansion of education is likely to reduce inequality, lifting the poorest from the bottom of the ladder.

Despite education’s potential, new UIS data show that there has been virtually no progress in reducing out-of-school rates in recent years. Globally, 9% of all children of primary school age are still denied their right to education, with rates reaching 16% and 37% for youth of lower and upper secondary ages, respectively. In total, 264 million children, adolescents and youth were out of school in 2015.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest out-of-school rates for all age groups: more than half (57%) of all youth between the ages of 15 and 17 are not in school, as are more than one-third (36%) of adolescents between 12 and 14 years and one-fifth (21%) of children between the ages of about 6 and 11. Six countries are home to more than one-third of all out-of-school children of primary age: Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sudan.

Of the 61 million children of primary school age currently out of school, 17 million will never to set foot in a classroom if current trends continue. This affects one in three children out of school in sub-Saharan Africa, Western Asia and Northern Africa, and more than one in four of those in Central Asia and Southern Asia.

Girls in poor countries continue to face particularly steep barriers to education. According to UIS data, in low-income countries, more than 11 million girls of primary age are out of school, compared to almost 9 million boys. The good news is that the girls who do manage to start school tend to complete the primary cycle and pursue their studies at the secondary level.

Education must reach the poorest in order to maximize its benefits and reduce income inequality. Yet the GEM Report shows that children from the poorest 20% of families are eight times as likely to be out of school as children from the richest 20% in lower-middle-income countries. Those of primary and secondary school age in the poorest countries are nine times as likely to be out of school as those in the richest countries.

While calling on countries to improve the quality of education, the paper stresses the need to reduce the direct and indirect costs of education for families. New UIS data confirm that many households still have to bear expenses relating to education, totaling $87 per child for primary education in Ghana, $151 per child in Côte d’Ivoire and $680 in El Salvador.

Representatives from the countries* that have ratified UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions will examine ways to apply the guiding principles of the Convention in the digital environment, when they hold their biennial annual meeting at UNESCO Headquarters from 13 to 15 June. During the event, participants will approve Operational Guidelines on the Implementation of the Convention in the Digital Environment.

These Guidelines will help countries ensure that artists and producers benefit fully and fairly from the information technologies’ potential both at the stages of creation, production and distribution.

They also address concerns such as: fair pay for artists and content producers, ensuring a culturally inclusive offer of content to the public that will not discriminate against cultural goods based on provenance, language or social factors, as well as respect for human rights in the digital environment, notably freedom of expression, artistic freedom and gender equality.

As noted in UNESCO’s report “Re | Shaping Cultural Policies, the digital revolution has fundamentally altered the way in which cultural goods and services are produced, distributed and accessed. with the expansion of social networks and user-generated content, the proliferation of multimedia devices and the emergence of powerful web-based companies. These factors mean the digital environment requires new business models for e-commerce and streaming for example, and new policies to protect copyright.

For the first time this year, UNESCO will host a Civil Society Organizations’ Forum prior to the Conference of Parties, on 12 June. On that day, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Jean-Michel Jarre, who is President of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), will give a keynote address on the fair remuneration of artists in the digital environment. Norwegian documentary film director Deeyah Khan, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Artistic Freedom and Creativity, will also speak at the Forum.

A noteworthy side event to the Conference of Parties will be the first European screening of the winner of the 2016 UNESCO-sponsored Cultural Diversity Award at the 11th Asia pacific Screen Awards, “Reseba: The Dark Wind,” 13 June (6.30 pm).

On the last day of the meeting, there will be a panel discussion of UNESCO’s International Fund for Cultural Diversity with presentations by beneficiaries from Burkina Faso, Haiti and Morocco to showcase how the fund reinforces the cultural industries in developing countries.

Media contact: Roni Amelan, UNESCO Media Service, r.amelan@unesco.org +33(0)145681650

Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO, will name Iraqi composer and oud virtuoso Naseer Shamma as a UNESCO Artist for Peace in a ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters on 23 February (6.30 pm).

Mr Shamma is appointed “in recognition of his commitment to support the musical education of young people in Iraq and beyond, his unfailing efforts to promote the message of peace through his performances and his dedication to the universal ideals and aims of the Organization”.

In his capacity as a UNESCO Artist for Peace, Mr Shamma will support UNESCO’s work on education for peace among young people as well as the safeguarding of cultural heritage in Iraq and in the region.

Born in El Koute (Iraq) in 1963, Naseer Shamma is celebrated both as an oud performer and as a composer of music for film, television and the theatre. A graduate of the Baghdad Music Academy, Mr Shamma heads the Arab Oud House in Cairo, which he founded in 1999.

Through his numerous tours, discs and publications, Mr Shamma has won appreciation for the oud and for the rich repertoire of Arabic music well beyond the Arab world. He has also worked in association with leading western artists such as US jazz musician Wynton Marsalis.

Naseer Shamma is also renowned for his commitment to peace, a theme he promotes during musical performances, particularly with young audiences. He has created humanitarian associations such as “The Flower Road” and Ahlma to help children and displaced people. Since 2012, he has organized many concerts in Baghdad, particularly during the International Day of Peace celebrated on 21 September.

UNESCO Artists for Peace are internationally renowned personalities who use their influence, charisma and prestige to help promote UNESCO’s message and programmes. UNESCO works with these distinguished personalities to heighten the public’s awareness of key development issues and inform it of the Organization’s action in these fields.