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The project will be carried out on the Global level with a focus on four regions; Africa, the Arab States, Latin America and the Caribbean and Eastern Europe and at least ten target countries.

Through  this initiative the United States supports UNESCO’s work on promoting the safety of journalists and freedom of expression, thereby strengthening democratic institutions in specific target countries. 

Specific attention will be given to countries affected by crises to strengthen normative frameworks and programme initiatives based on prevention, protection and prosecution of crimes against journalists in accordance with the UN Plan of Action on Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. This will be done by engaging key stakeholders – journalists, law enforcement, judges and other judicial actors, to promote freedom of expression in line with international standards.

Supporting electoral integrity

Another focus area are elections where UNESCO will scale up its freedom of expression work with key electoral stakeholders, including electoral management bodies, national authorities, electoral observers, Civil Society Organizations, media and journalists to develop and implement policies to promote freedom of expression, access to information, and the safety of journalists. Thereby contributing to electoral integrity and peaceful democratic processes. 

Third, the project aims to tackle digital threats and legal attacks against journalists and media workers in at least 10 countries, through capacity-building, strengthening of networks and knowledge-sharing between stakeholders such as journalists, lawyers, judges, and civil society organizations.

A fourth area of focus will be to strengthen inclusive and gender-responsive policies of newsrooms as well as providing psychosocial support provided to women journalists, to foster the safety and resilience of women journalists in the face of specific offline and online gendered threats and attacks. 

Fundamental role of journalists

The project agreement is based on the premises that journalists and media workers have a fundamental role in society, underpinning democratic debate by providing populations with access to reliable information, fact-checking, analysis and commentary. Through their efforts to investigate and shine light on wrongdoing, they are crucial actors for supporting justice and accountability. 

At the same time, journalists face worsening conditions worldwide: attacks by violent actors and the increased use of legal harassment, reduced public trust in professional journalism, online violence, especially targeting women journalists, in a context of wholesale disruption of media business models in the digital age. This is coupled with growing numbers of exiled journalists and continuously high numbers of journalists being killed, something the project is aimed to address.

The project will have a global scope, with a specific focus on countries in the Global South and particularly in Africa working in regions going into elections and experiencing crises, with activities proposed at the global, regional and national level.

UNESCO is the coordinator of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity and the project aims to follow up on many of the priorities identified during the 10th anniversary thematic and regional consultations as well as a follow up on the Chilling-project on the safety of women journalists and to enhance and strengthen the UNESCO Judges’ Initiative, which has trained over  36.000 judicial actors and 12,000 law enforcement officers worldwide over the past  decade.