A female Senior Lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, Mrs. Diana Heymann-Adu has been elected to serve as rapporteur on the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Council of the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC).

She was unanimously elected during the 29th session of the Council held at the Headquarters of UNESCO in Paris, France on 20th and 21st November, 2014. Mrs. Heymann-Adu will serve on the Council’s Bureau until 2016 and she is eligible for reelection.

The 29th Council Session also saw the election of another female, Ms. Albana Shala of the Netherlands as its Chair.

The election of the two females is seen by many as a way of empowering women and promoting gender equality.

Mrs. Heymann-Adu would be ensuring the promotion of freedom of expression and media pluralism, capacity building for journalists, media managers and journalism and innovation in convergence and integration of traditional news media and new trends in communication in Ghana.

IPDC’s Council is composed of 39 Member States elected by UNESCO’s General Conference.

Ghana was elected to the UNESCO Council during the 37th General conference of UNESCO in November, 2014 and is represented by H.E. Johanna Odonkor Svanikier, Ghana’s Ambassador and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO.

The IPDC was set up in 1980 as the only intergovernmental programme in the UN system to mobilize the international community to discuss and promote media development in developing countries.

The IPDC’s actions, over the last 30 years, have had an important impact on a broad range of fields covering, among others, the promotion of media independence and pluralism, development of community media, radio and television, modernization of national and regional news agencies and training of media professionals.

Since its creation, IPDC has channeled about US$105 million to over 1,700 media development projects in about 140 countries.

It meets once every two years and its Bureau of eight Member States meets once a year and allocates support to grassroots media projects around the world.

H.E. Johanna Odonkor Svanikier, Ghana’s Ambassador and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, proposed Mrs. Diana Heymann-Adu based on her competence and immense contribution towards the development of the media in Ghana to sit on the Council’s Bureau and take on the position of rapporteur.