The Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development

Dear all,

The Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development 
http://www.lyondeclaration.org/ was successfully launched at the World Library and Information Congress 2014 in Lyon. Since then, over 280 organisations from across the library and development community have signed the document and called upon United Nations Member States to incorporate access to information in the new post-2015 development framework. The Declaration has now been translated into 13 languages.

Following the release of the Open Working Group Outcome Document in July, IFLA is now waiting to see what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon will present to the UN General Assembly later this year in New York. The Secretary General is currently overseeing preparation of a ‘synthesis report’ that will bring together the outputs of various processes on the post-2015 development agenda and help UN Member States find a way forward in negotiations over the next twelve months. The synthesis report is expected to be released at the end of October/early November.

What are the next steps?

Once the synthesis report is issued it is crucial that policymakers in the capitals of UN Member States get to hear what libraries want to see in the new framework. As outlined in the Lyon Declaration, IFLA wants the United Nations to acknowledge that access to information, and the skills to use it effectively, are required for sustainable development, and to make sure that the framework’s goals, targets and means of implementation reflects this.

Your voice will be needed for us to achieve this goal.

IFLA is currently preparing an advocacy toolkit which will help library representatives to approach decision-makers in order to talk to them about the importance of access to information in development. IFLA wants to help its members and partners to take the opportunity to position themselves inside development debates in their home countries, so that their governments recognise the value libraries bring to development. Ultimately, libraries can benefit from being included in the national plans that will implement the new development agenda from January 1st, 2016.

The advocacy toolkit will be available in early October 2014.

What can you do to help?

• You can sign the Lyon Declaration and add your voice to the call at the United Nations.
• You can translate the Lyon Declaration into your language and share it with colleagues in your own country.
• You can encourage others in the library and development sectors to sign the Lyon Declaration.
• You can organise meetings with policy makers in your country and use the toolkit provided by IFLA in order to make the library voice heard on a national level.
• You can promote the principles of the Lyon Declaration throughout your network and ensure that the message gets spread as widely as possible.

The Lyon Declaration is available here.

Contact Julia.brungs AT ifla.org for more information on IFLA’s post-2015 activities.

Background

The Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development calls upon United Nations Member States to make an international commitment through the post-2015 development agenda to ensure that everyone has access to, and is able to understand, use and share the information that is necessary to promote sustainable development and democratic societies. It was prepared by IFLA and a number of strategic partners in the library and development communities.

Please also see the webversion.

Julia Brungs
Policy and Projects Officer
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
P.O. Box 95312
2509 CH The Hague
Netherlands
Email: Julia.brungs AT ifla.org

My source: HIFA2015

Joint Strike Care F-4(5)

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic ------------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

individual(?)

Social Reflections on Power	Joint Strike Fighter F-35 Lightning II

group - population

Joint Strike Fighter F-35 Lightning II

Image source: https://www.f35.com/assets/uploads/downloads/13661/9777287314_9a87af14da_o__medium.jpg

 

Evidence and the increasing effect of parallax

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

individual

from here ...	EVIDENCE
from here...	and here

group - population

Additional link: parallax

An International Bill of the Rights of Man (reissued)

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

individual

How do we address the mental health status of our leaders?	How can science and technology work positively to assure the Rights of All, to secure evidence of war crimes? Where does the biosphere stand (side-by-side : hand-in-hand)?
Should war crimes once perpetrated be relegated to cultural memory: baggage carried forward for generations anew to avenge? How must they do this other than learning (remembering) how to hate? What are the important lessons; of what must be remembered and what we should forget?	An International Bill of the Rights of Man

group - population

Individual - Group: Axes & Histories

What are the dimensions of the axes that make up the structure of Hodges' model?

Can the individual see the group - the global population - beyond the fresh air in their pocket?

In not seeing the individual, as the global corpus shouts about: "choice", "economic growth", "freedom", "human rights", "democracy", "justice" ... do they see the big picture amid the political smog, the corporate dust storm?

One form human society has so far not generally taken is global. There is still virtually no shared consciousness globally of common struggles or common achievements. Enormous groups - the poor in the Global South for instance - have no sense of forming a single community; in an earlier age, the experience of being subjected to European colonial force failed to create a common anti-colonial front. Even today's most urgent global issues tend to be tackled regionally or nationally: the history of global warming or organised crime is a history of multiple actors, as often as not talking at cross-purposes. p.8.

Prof. Mark Mazower, All together now, FT Weekend, March 9 - 10, 2013, p. 8. Reviewing The Undivided Past: History Beyond Our Differences, by David Cannadine, Allen Lane. 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/edb5b2ea-84d3-11e2-891d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2OXNCQ1xD
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b1793262-8d6f-11e2-82d2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2OXNCQ1xD

Olympic Torches, History and Nostalgia for the Light

I never got to see the Olympic torch procession,  although I crossed its path on a couple of occasions.

This for me has much significance    +

In Euxton, Lancashire and more recently I found myself ahead of the relay in Oxford.

I saw a torch at the Disability Awareness Day in Warrington.



A prized possession: a keepsake of a lifetime.


Image source: http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/9825966.Disability_Awareness_Day_marks_21st_event_with_Olympic_glow/


Over the weekend I went to see the film - Nostalgia for the Light. A documentary that is simultaneously challenging, troubling, poetic and beautiful. A journey through history in its multiple forms; astronomy, and archaeology - ancient and modern. The setting is the Atacama desert. The astronomers using various telescopes explore celestial bodies, taking advantage of the elevation and transparency of the sky. The extremely low humidity that also supports such observations also preserves human bodies. Not just those thousands of years old, but human bodies from more recent times. Those of Chile's "disappeared" those who have been found and those still lost to their families.

Skeletons abounded. Ancient mummies, more recent explorers and miners. I noticed how these skeletons can give up their secrets from belongings, clothing, identified by relatives.

How telescopes themselves are skeletized in their design to save weight, cost. Today the affluent can purchase a skeletized watch - to make a statement. Mechanism. To mark their personal history. History.

What legacy? What cost? 

Around the world : dictatorship.

The search of the few for the many against the sun and the turn of stars.

Light seeking light, seeking peace and a final release.

Health literacy around the world - please distribute

My source: HIFA2015

Hello!

At the request of the U.S. Institute of Medicine Roundtable of Health Literacy, I am preparing a background paper on health literacy activities around the world. To support that effort, I have created an online survey tool to gather information on how health literacy is being put into policy and practice in national, state, and local governments, the European Union, the United Nations, the business community, non-governmental and non-profit organizations, and within the education sector.

Our goal is to learn what is going on in the field of health literacy in as many nations as possible [*see note below] - and your assistance in both responding to the survey and sharing the survey with your colleagues is critically important. Please respond to the survey and please forward this survey link and request for participation to your peers and colleagues working in the field around the world.

You can find the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/global_health_literacy_listserv

A report will be made available based on the outcomes of this effort.

Please let me know if you have any questions about this project or encounter any problems with the web site.

If you have previously received this invitation, you do not need to respond to the survey again if you already have done so. If you have not already done so - please do!

Thank you!
Andrew Pleasant
Andrew Pleasant, Ph.D.
Health Literacy and Research Director
Canyon Ranch Institute
8600 E. Rockcliff Road
Tucson, AZ 85750
Phone 520.239.8561, Ext. 4147
Fax 520.239.8542
andrew AT canyonranchinstitute.org

Canyon Ranch Institute is a 501(c)3 non-profit public charity.
For information, please visit canyonranchinstitute.org

HIFA2015 profile: Andrew Pleasant is Director of Health Literacy and Research at Canyon Ranch Institute, United States. Professional interests: Health literacy, Prevention of disease, Integrative medicine, Health system reform. andrew AT canyonranchinstitute.org

[*Note from HIFA2015 moderator:

At the end of the survey is the following question:

'Please tell us what you think would be the best next steps for the field of health literacy. What could other health literacy researchers, practitioners, and academics located around the world do that would help you to make a greater impact and further advance health literacy in your work?'

I would like to invite comments on this question for discussion here on the HIFA2015 forum: hifa2015 AT dgroups.org

Health literacy is a critical issue to achieve the HIFA2015 goal - to ensure that lack of availability and use of basic healthcare knowledge is no longer a major contributing factor to needless death and suffering. What more can be done to improve health literacy in low and middle income countries? And what more can be done to ensure that healthcare information is presented in ways that are appropriate to those with low health literacy?

Thanks, Neil PW]