International Programme for the Development of Communication

The International Programme for the Development of Communication is a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) programme aimed at strengthening the development of mass media in developing countries.

On December 10, 1948, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly as Resolution 217 A (III). It stated that "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

In 1977, UNESCO initiated the International Commission for the Study of Communications Problems, known as the MacBride Commission and named after the Commission's Chairman Sean MacBride. The Commission was given a three-year time frame to conduct investigations and report back to UNESCO. In October 1980, the report Many Voices, One World was presented at the Belgrade Assembly.

As a result of the report, UNESCO launched the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC). The programme web site states that it "exists to strengthen the means of mass communication in developing countries, by increasing technical and human resources for the media, by developing community media and by modernising news agencies and broadcasting organizations."

At the November 1987 General Conference at Paris, UNESCO called for the continuation of its major plan called Communication in the Service of Man in which it re-affirmed that "it is essential gradually to eliminate existing imbalances in the field of communication, in particular by fostering the development of infrastructures, the training of people and the strengthening of production and dissemination capacities in the developing countries, and to encourage a free flow and a wider and better balanced dissemination of information, with a view to the establishment of a new world information and communication order seen as an evolving and continuous process."

...
Wikipedia