News

On 29 May 2018, the Director-General of UNESCO, Ms Audrey Azoulay, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Paraguay, Mr Eladio Loizaga, signed an agreement concerning the organization of the international seminar “Empowerment of the local language speakers, communities and nations” that will be held on 3-5 July 2018 in Asunción, Paraguay.

The international seminar aims at providing a substantive contribution to an update analysis at national and regional level, reinforcing the capacities of the countries from the region to address the issues of languages within the context of the various global commitments. To this effect, experts, Member States, UNESCO representatives and UNESCO Official Centres, as well as other relevant organizations will be attending the event in Asunción.

Together with hosting the international seminar, with this agreement, the Republic of Paraguay joins the global efforts to promote, preserve and revitalize indigenous languages in the LAC region, in line with the objectives of the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages, declared by the United Nations General Assembly in 2016.

On the agenda of the international seminar will be presentations of good practices, initiatives and concrete actions taken at national level in the framework of a multilingual context. There will be also a dialogue on the situations of languages in Latin America and the Caribbean region, and a debate on the regional contributions to the implementation of the international commitments to linguistic diversity. In addition, the participants will review the recommendations for implementing the Action Plan of the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages, as well as for creating regional collaborations and networks towards developing a Regional Atlas of Languages within the context of UNESCO World Atlas of Languages.

This event contributes significantly to the realization of UNESCO’s mandate related to the promotion of cultural diversity and multilingualism which play a key role in fostering pluralistic, equitable, open and inclusive knowledge societies.

URL:

https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-and-paraguay-committed-empowerment-indigenous-languages-lac-region