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STORY: UN / UNESCO WORLD REGISTER
TRT: 2:36
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 17 APRIL 2025, NEW YORK CITY
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters
17 APRIL 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Guilherme Canela de Souza, Director of the Division for Digital Inclusion and policies and Digital Transformation, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):
“It's impossible to protect and promote the free flow of ideas and knowledge, if we haven't preserved this knowledge, these ideas in the first place. So, Memory of the World is about the documental heritage, is about protecting our ideas, our knowledge, in order for us to be able to communicate them, to be accessible. And it's very much, of course, related to the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas that is in the article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
4. Wide shot, press room
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Guilherme Canela de Souza, Director of the Division for Digital Inclusion and policies and Digital Transformation, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):
“If we want to know the chemical composition of our planet, we go to the periodical table. If we want to understand the human journey in this planet, the human journey related to knowledge, it's a good start to look into the Memory of the World Register. There you are going to find what we have been doing related to music, to philosophy, to cinema, to international relations, to religion, to human rights, to history in general, to science, to languages, to literature.”
6. Wide shot, press room
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Guilherme Canela de Souza, Director of the Division for Digital Inclusion and policies and Digital Transformation, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):
“The new 74 collections that the Executive Board of UNESCO just approved today in its session, they were suggested by 72 countries from all over the world, plus four international organisations.”
8. Wide shot, press room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Guilherme Canela de Souza, Director of the Division for Digital Inclusion and policies and Digital Transformation, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):
“The UN archives and official documents related to the International Bill of Rights, which includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are being described, in the Memory of the World Register, today, as I just mentioned, by the decision of the Executive Board of UNESCO.”
10. Wide shot, press room
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Guilherme Canela de Souza, Director of the Division for Digital Inclusion and policies and Digital Transformation, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):
“The Geneva Conventions and their protocols, also being inscribed. And as we know this is a cornerstone of international humanitarian law. Third document is the 1991 Windhoek Declaration on promoting an Independent and pluralistic African press. As we know, this document is a particularly important relevance for press freedom. It this actually the origin of the World Press Freedom Day.”
12. Wide shot, end of presser
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is among 74 new additions to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, the Director of the Division for Digital Inclusion and Policies and Digital Transformation at UNESCO, Guilherme Canela de Souza, told reporters in New York today (17 Apr)
Briefing via video teleconference from Paris, Canela de Souza said, “it's impossible to protect and promote the free flow of ideas and knowledge, if we haven't preserved this knowledge, these ideas in the first place.”
He said the Memory of the World Register “is about the documental heritage, is about protecting our ideas, our knowledge, in order for us to be able to communicate them, to be accessible.”
The UNESCO official said, “if we want to know the chemical composition of our planet, we go to the periodical table. If we want to understand the human journey in this planet, the human journey related to knowledge, it's a good start to look into the Memory of the World Register. There you are going to find what we have been doing related to music, to philosophy, to cinema, to international relations, to religion, to human rights, to history in general, to science, to languages, to literature.”
He said, “the new 74 collections that the Executive Board of UNESCO just approved today in its session, they were suggested by 72 countries from all over the world, plus four international organisations.”
The Geneva Conventions and their protocols, “a cornerstone of international humanitarian law,” Canela de Souza said, is also being inscribed.
A third document, he continued, “is the 1991 Windhoek Declaration on promoting an Independent and pluralistic African press,” which he added, “is a particularly important relevance for press freedom. It this actually the origin of the World Press Freedom Day.”
The Register consists of documentary collections including books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and sound or video recordings, which bear witness to the shared heritage of humanity.
These items often are extremely fragile and at risk of deterioration or exposure to disaster.
Collections are added by decision of UNESCO’s Executive Board, following the evaluation of nominations by an independent international advisory committee.
