From the International Federation of Library Associations:
As the United Nations reflects on the future of global development and the post-2015 agenda, access to information must be recognised as critical to supporting governments to achieve development goals, and enabling citizens to make informed decisions to improve their own lives. IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, believes that libraries help guarantee that access. IFLA has launched a toolkit to support library institutions and associations and other civil society organisations to advocate for this position. The toolkit provides background on the issues and practical advice on how to set up meetings with government representatives. Template letters, talking points and examples of how libraries help meet development goals are included.
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The toolkit will empower signatories of the Lyon Declaration, including library institutions and associations, to take the “asks” of the Lyon Declaration to policy makers in their country, and for that message to be heard at the UN. To achieve that, meetings with a large number of Member States need to be held. Signatories of the Lyon Declaration will ask the UN Member States to:
- Acknowledge the public’s right to access information and data, while respecting the right to individual privacy;
- Recognise the important role of local authorities, information intermediaries and infrastructure such as ICTs and an open Internet as a means of implementation.
- Adopt policy, standards and legislation to ensure the continued funding, integrity, preservation and provision of information by governments, and access by people;
- Develop targets and indicators that enable measurement of the impact of access to information and data and reporting on progress during each year of the goals in a Development and Access to Information (DA2I) report.
The timeline until the final post-2015 goals are decided is short. If libraries are to be part of the discussion, action needs to be taken now and until September 2015.
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