The activities of the Arab Media Forum, which is organised by the General Secretariat of the Arab League, kicked off Saturday in the Jordanian capital, Amman, with the participation of the State of Qatar, represented by the Qatar Media Corporation.
Ahmed Ghasab Al Hajri, Director of Planning, Quality, and International Cooperation and Abdul Aziz Al Yafei, Director of the Information Systems Department at the Corporation participated in the Forum.
In his speech before the forum, Assistant Secretary-General and Head of the Media and Communication Sector of the Arab League, Ambassador Ahmed Rashid Khattabi, said that this forum falls within the context of the continuous efforts of the Arab League to implement the goals of the United Nations Agenda 2030, as it was at the forefront of regional organizations that took the initiative since 2016 to engage in commitment to advancing sustainable development paths based on the organic link between the media and these goals.
He said that they look forward to this forum being a starting point for launching a regular space for dialogue between all partners, including governments, councils, professional federations, civil society, and experts to develop advanced forms of media cooperation, including consolidating the foundations of governance, social justice, gender approach, improving educational systems and stimulating innovation, and building productive capacities in a way that contributes to achieving more developmental gains without compromising the future of emerging generations, in line with the determinants of sustainable development.
He pointed out that this forum aims to discuss the most effective communication policies that contribute to achieving the requirements of development goals such as fighting poverty and exclusion, ensuring food security, improving the health system, climate changes, and rationalizing consumption, stressing the need to give more attention to sustainable development in universities and specialized institutes.
He also called for the adoption of a development media that includes the widest segments of society, especially in the rural areas, and can mobilize the audio, visual, written and electronic media, praising in this regard the launch of an Arab initiative to protect the Arab child from inappropriate media content.
Ahmed Rashid Khattabi noted the adoption by the Council of Arab Information Ministers of the Arab media strategy and the preparation of the Arab media map for sustainable development adopted by the Arab Summit in Dhahran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 2018, which called on the concerned Arab government agencies and institutions to cooperate with the General Secretariat of the Arab League in this regard, pointing out that these endeavors were reinforced by the creation of a media observatory on sustainable development on the Arab League website, and the preparation of a comprehensive guide for media professionals, as well as an implementation plan for the goals of the Arab media map for sustainable development aimed in particular at developing radio and television program production, employing digital uses, in addition to including development media in educational curricula, and organizing intellectual seminars to exchange national development experiences.
