World Development Information Day: 24 October

The United Nations celebrates World Development Information Day on 24 October each year. The UN Conference on Trade and Development proposed measures for the information dissemination and mobilization of public opinion related to development issues in May 1972. The UN General Assembly passed the proposal into a resolution in the same year. The UN General Assembly decided that the day should coincide with United Nations Day. In 1970 it was also the date of the adoption of the International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade.

The first World Development Information Day was held on 24 October 1973. In recent years the World Development Information Day has focussed on modern information technologies, such as the Internet and mobile telephones, and the role they play in alerting people to solutions for trade and development: ‘information and communication technologies have the potential to provide new solutions to development challenges, particularly in the context of globalization, and can foster economic growth, competitiveness, access to information and knowledge, poverty eradication and social inclusion.’

http://www.un.org/en/events/devinfoday/

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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