PARIS, April 2 (Saba) -- Kuwait has been handpicked as deputy chief of the executive board of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Council for the Information for All Program, Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) reported on Friday.

This choice, which took place during a recent two-day gathering of the council, came thanks to Kuwait's efforts to provide information to everybody at the national, Gulf and Arab levels, said Chief of Media Information at the Foreign Media Sector of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information Khalid Al-Rezni on Friday.

He hailed the move as the first achievement for governmental mass media, saying that Kuwait was first chosen in the council by the Arab Group upon nomination from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Libya and then in the executive board.

The Intergovernmental Council for the Information for All Program comprises 26 members out of a total of 193 UNESCO members, divided among six regions, he said.

The new eight-member executive board of the council now includes Russia as chief, Austria, the Philippines, Kuwait, Brazil, Latvia, Madagascar, and Cote d'Ivoire, he added.

The Information for All Program is the only intergovernmental program exclusively dedicated to promoting universal access to information and knowledge for development. This is a key plank in building knowledge societies.

During the recent gathering of the council, the participants reflected on the financial position of the program and reports of national supervisory committees, he said.
The Kuwaiti official quoted the executive board as welcoming and appreciating Kuwait's role in the provision of information to everybody in both public and private sectors.

He said Kuwait had presented to the gathering a couple of overtures aiming to revamp the performance and budget of the board and to make up working teams.
Kuwait was charged with forming one of the board's five teams, which is responsible for information contribution to development.

Founded in 2000, the UNESCO Intergovernmental Council for the Information for All Program seeks to provide education to everybody, to freely share ideas and knowledge and to develop people-to-people relations.

It is also intended to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor in the field of information and provision of platforms for international political debates and discussion of moral, legal and social effects of information and communication technological advancement.
Saba