Kathmandu: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) conducted a two-day regional workshop on Safeguarding Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in South Asia on March 24 and March 25. The first two days of the workshop through Implementation of UNESCO Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms have been successfully concluded.
The regional workshop in Kathmandu brought together regulators, parliamentarians, policymakers, civil society organizations, media professionals, academics, youth representatives, and digital governance experts from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka to advance dialogue on rights-based digital platform governance.
The first two days of the workshop centered on regulators and provided a platform for participants to reflect on regional governance trends and challenges, examine findings from national consultations, identify governance gaps and shared priorities. Through comparative regional exchange and multi-stakeholder dialogue, participants contributed to recommendations to the regional toolkit for policymakers to strengthen policymaking and coherence in digital platform governance across South Asia.
UNESCO stated that the remaining next two days, the focus will shift to civil society engagement, aiming to discuss and validate the regional toolkits for civil society, and unfold the road ahead for implementation and regional cooperation.
