Tag Archives: SDGs

SDG Success in the Balance: Lessons from the 2020 Goalkeepers Report

As world leaders prepare to participate in the United Nations General Assembly, the Gates Foundation has released its 2020 Goalkeepers Report.

Focusing on a subset of indicators and themes featured in the UN’s 2030 Agenda, it looks to trace progress on key issues linked to the work of the Foundation, in particular health, poverty, education and equality.

These are, of course, also areas which can be determining for overall development – illness, low-education, and the exclusion of whole parts of any population represent a serious drag on progress in any society.

The Report has received widespread attention in the media, especially that focused on development, with its warnings around the risks that the COVID-19 pandemic poses to progress towards achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

For libraries, as institutions committed to promoting progress in the communities they serve, the report is worth reading in order to understand the state of the world now. A number of conclusions in particular stand out – this blog explores just five:

The COVID-19 Pandemic stands to send us backwards in delivering on the 2030 Agenda: the first five years of the SDGs had, at least until the arrival of the pandemic, seen useful progress in fighting poverty and disease around the world. However, as the Report underlines, this progress has stopped in many areas. Indeed, we risk seeing 25 years of progress disappear in the space of 25 weeks when it comes to vaccinations. This needs to serve as a wake-up call for all those working to deliver stronger, fairer, more sustainable societies – we need to be careful to ensure that this set-back is not permanent.

We are facing a set of ‘mutually exacerbating catastrophes’: the Report underlines that the crisis is a complex one. While the immediate challenge is of course to restrict the spread of the virus until a vaccine can be found and deployed, there are already economic, social and educational catastrophes. Indeed, the loss of livelihoods, closure of schools and other steps may in turn create new health challenges outside of COVID-19, not least as concerns other vaccination and public health programmes.

The risks are highest for those already facing marginalisation: the Goalkeepers initiative, from its creation, has focused strongly on the situation of those most at risk of marginalisation. The 2020 edition underlines emerging signs that the pandemic will make inequality worse. For example, reduced demand and rules on distancing have made impossible many of the jobs – often informal – on which people facing poverty, and in particular women, depend. There are also concerns that when children start to return to school, girls will be held back, and of course children living in households without broadband access have been unable to benefit from distance learning in the same way as better connected peers.

In tough times, we cannot necessarily count on more money: the Report makes the stark warning that it is often the countries that need help most that are least able to provide it. Whereas already rich countries can borrow money for stimulus programmes, poorer ones face much higher interest rates, reducing their options. Yet even in richer countries, debts incurred today will need to be paid back tomorrow. Part of the response will, as the Report suggests, need to be a new mobilisation at the international level to get help to where it is needed. But implicit in this also is the need to make best use of the resources and infrastructures that we already have.

Libraries are in a position to help: in many of the areas highlighted by the report, the potential for libraries to contribute to the response is clear. Indeed, the support offered by the Gates Foundation over many years to libraries has made it possible to show what can be done. As pre-existing, familiar institutions around the world (there are 430 000 public and community libraries, one for every 15 000 people in countries for which we have data), working through libraries represents low-hanging fruit.

Graph from Goalkeepers Report showing risk of regression in literacy levels among childrenThe most obvious area where libraries can support progress is on education, where different projections all anticipate a drop in the share of children at the end of primary education able to read and understand a simple text. Clearly schools are at the heart of the response, but libraries can complement this by helping children engage with language from a young age, drawing on well-established expertise, as underlined by UNESCO.

Another potential area is reproductive health. Again, this is an area where health professionals themselves will take the lead, but where information – and access to this – is a key part of the response, as set out in IFLA’s response to a consultation by the UN’s Human Rights Council.

A third area is around financial services to the poor. Clearly, libraries themselves are not in a position to offer loans or protect savings, but can help provide the connectivity necessary for any digital banking services to reach people. The role of libraries in providing public access to the internet is well-recognised, and was even, in 2015, identified as the single most cost-effective way of bringing the next billion online.

 

There is much more in the Report, as well as great tools for exploring the data and understanding where your country stands on the indicators selected. There is also strong potential to draw on the key messages highlighted above, both to focus reflection within the library field, and underline how libraries can be part of the solution, if they are properly included in policy planning.

What’s on the Agenda for Libraries and the SDGs in the Rest of 2020?

2020 has been a big year for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A third of the way into the time Member States gave themselves for their implementation, there is only a decade left to deliver.

Clearly, this is not the only way in which 2020 has not been a normal year.

Following the African Regional Forum on Sustainable Development in February, all other regional meetings on the SDGs were held virtually or simply postponed. Similarly, the 2020 High Level Political Forum took place online.

However, work has continued, and indeed is as important as ever as the world looks to make progress while also dealing with the consequences of the pandemic.

This emphasis on the need to accelerate efforts to make a reality of sustainable development will therefore mark the last four months of the year, and bring with it opportunities for libraries to highlight the role they can play.

Here are just a few of those opportunities:

18 September – SDG Moment: in the context of the United Nations General Assembly, there will be a morning where heads of state and government will underline their commitment to the SDGs. For those countries participating (the list is not yet available), this could be an opportunity to underline your work around the SDGs on social media. Find out more here.

18-25 September – Global Goals Week: also taking place at the time of the UN General Assembly, Global Goals Week offers a programme of events and activities, online, that run from the 18 September SDG moment to the anniversary of the agreement of the UN 2030 Agenda on 25 September. In particular, look out for the global day of factivism on 25 September, where people will share facts that set out how the world is doing towards achieving the SDGs – a perfect opportunity for the library field to show what it can do! Find out more here.

28 September – International Day for the Universal Access to Information: September is a busy month! Following four years as a UNESCO international day, last year, the UN General Assembly upgraded the International Day for the Universal Access to Information to a UN-level observance. With a strong focus on the power of information to improve lives, it’s a great opportunity to share how libraries make a difference, through social media, op-eds, or letters to newspapers, radio or TV shows. Find out more here.

October – Urban October: the month of October opens with World Habitat Day on 5 October, and ends with World Cities Day on 31 October. With libraries playing a major and acknowledged role in promoting inclusion and social cohesion, it’s a great time to be highlighting how libraries build communities. IFLA will be planning communications around the celebrations and will share information in due course, but you also can register events on the Urban October website. Find out more here.

19-21 October – World Data Forum: while it will not be possible to meet in person, the virtual World Data Forum provides a great learning opportunity for anyone interested in how statistics are being – or can be – used to strengthen efforts to deliver the SDGs. IFLA will be highlighting its own statistical outputs – and what you can do with them – with a special focus on World Statistics Day on 20 October. Find out more here.

24 October – UN Day/World Development Information Day: another opportunity to highlight how libraries and information contribute to sustainable development is World Development Information Day. This can be an opportunity to show how libraries are supporting research addressing major development challenges, and so accelerating progress towards the SDGs! Find out more here.

 

There are also ongoing projects where you can play a role:

Gather stories and data to power your advocacy! You can help both yourself and colleagues elsewhere in the world by contributing stories, data and country profiles to the Library Map of the World. Find out more on the website.

Establish or refresh your contacts with SDG leads in your country: do the people responsible for delivering on the SDGs in your country know about what libraries can provide? Try to find out who is in charge in government and parliament, as well as among civil society organisations. There are great examples from Brazil and Costa Rica of the benefits of forming these links.

Get involved in preparing your country’s Voluntary National Review: for the countries which will undertake Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) of progress towards the SDGs in 2021, it is useful to try and understand early what the process will be. A provisional list is already available, and will be finalised soon. If your country is on there, find out how the process will be run, and consult our guide on engaging in VNRs.

 

Good luck, and please do share your plans, either in the comments below or by e-mailing us at da2i@ifla.org!

Use of Works in Teaching Activities – Article 5 of the EU-DSM directive by Soile Manninen

Soile Manninen is an Information Specialist at Helsinki University Library (Finland) and a member of the working group on legal issues of The Finnish Research Library Association. The mission of the group is to track legislation concerning libraries, and keep Association members up to date about these issues.

Can you explain to us what article 5 of the EU-DSM Directive contains?

This new mandatory educational exception/limitation allows the digital use of works and other subject matter for the purpose of illustration for non-commercial teaching for cross-border uses. “Use of works” covers reproduction (scanning, printing, copying, uploading, downloading, making screenshots, etc.), communication to the public, and making available to the public. “Non-commercial teaching” refers to the nature of the teaching, not the organizational or funding background of the educational establishment.

The responsibility belongs to the educational establishment. Teaching should happen on its premises or at other venues (e.g. libraries, museums), or through a secure electronic environment that is only available for the pupils or students and teaching staff educational establishment. Cross-border teaching follows the legislation of that country where the educational organisation is established. During teaching activities, it is always required to indicate the source and give the author’s name, unless this turns out to be impossible.

Member States may provide that this exception or limitation adopted does not cover specific uses or types of works, e.g. materials that are intended for the educational market or if licenses are easily available. If Member State supports a license-based solution, it has to ensure that these licenses are available and visible in an appropriate manner, and there shouldn’t be any administrative burden to educational establishments. Member States should clarify those situations where this exception or limitation is applicable and when uses require a license. Member States can decide in favor of fair compensation for the right holders for the use of their works.

Some EU countries have already implemented allowed educational exceptions or limitations based on InfoSoc Directive (2001/29/EC) and Database Directive (96/9/EC) but the legislation still differs between Member States so there is demand for common ground to take care digital teaching cross-border activities.

Why is this provision important for libraries?

Libraries support education and are educators. In higher education or school environment the connection between library and education is easy to see because libraries take care of material acquisition and agreements with service providers, but how does this work in public libraries or special libraries? Public libraries are one of the key information resources for education at every level, most importantly for students at primary and secondary levels, and of course, every self-motivated citizen who takes part in non-formal training activities.

It should be pointed out that this exception cannot be overridden by contract but there might be some things to follow when libraries negotiate with service providers. What kind of clauses we have to consider and does this have some effects on the prices of information resources when the potential amount of users is going to bigger? If Member State decide in favor of fair compensation for right holders, how is it organized and who pays all this?

What is the best implementation libraries could hope for with this article?

Libraries and cultural heritage institutions should be mentioned as educational establishments so there will not be any confusion that libraries can carry out educational activities.

Article 5 concerns digital uses, and it does not say anything about printed material, but digitization is allowed. This exception/limitation allows using part of the work and Member States can decide on what extent works can be used. Hopefully, there won’t be specific quantitative measures because those numbers treat different types of works unequally (there is a difference are you using 20% of novel or photo).

In those countries where licensing is the option, there should be clear guidance and awareness of how materials can be used and the compensation system should be transparent for all sides. Based on Article 25 of the DSM Directive it is possible to adopt wider exceptions and maintain possibilities that InfoSoc Directive already offered. If there are exceptions/limitations that have been regulated earlier and they have proven to be functional, there isn’t any reason to make these any worse.

What is your government’s position on the issue?

Implementing the DSM Directive in the Finnish government belongs to the Ministry of Education and Culture. In May 2019 the Ministry started to organize open workshops and discussions where stakeholders worked together to understand what the DSM Directive means and which is the best way to implement the new Directive into our legislation.

Discussion around Article 5 has been quiet. Finland and other Nordic countries have active collective management organisations (CMOs) which represent authors, performers, and publishers, and extended collective licensing (ECL) is not new to us. It seems that copyright societies are now seeking new licensing solutions, and this gets support from the DSM Directive’s Article 12 “Collective licensing with an extended effect”.

Moving towards license-based solutions seems to be the worst-case scenario for many Member States where this kind of arrangement is not common but the license-based solution is reality in some countries. The Finnish National Agency for Education takes care of licensing negotiations with CMOs for primary and second-degree education and the costs of licenses are paid from the national budget. Higher education institutions have to pay these licenses from their budgets. This is how teachers, pupils, and students can use printed and digital material and copyright holders get their compensation of the use.

In Finland, education is public (in copyright language: communication to the public). Teachers make most of the education materials themselves and the basic rule is that they hold the copyright for their material. According to the recent copyright study published by the Center for Cultural Policy Research (2019), the main issue of the primary and second-degree education is the lack of digital material that can be modified, further developed and combined.

It is not always clear when uses fall under copyright law, licenses, or when there is a need to get separate permission from the copyright holder (e.g. using audiovisual material) and these issues arise daily while using digital platforms. Libraries have been actively promoting Open Educational Resources (OER), consulting about copyright and Creative Commons licenses and this work continues.

Advoc8: Library Advocacy in March

As much as anyone else, libraries work across a wide range of policy areas. Our institutions are engaged daily in work to promote research, support education, facilitate free access to information and expression, and deliver social inclusion. Library values and experience give us a unique voice in these debates, helping to support fairer, stronger and more sustainable development for all.

This breadth of activity can also be a challenge. No-one has infinite time to put into advocacy, and in any case, there is limited capacity amongst decision-makers, influencers and library-supporters. As a result, it is important to prioritise.

Therefore, in the first of what we hope to make a monthly series of blogs, we will be defining our ‘Advoc8’ – a set of 8 key messages that you can draw on in your library advocacy, from formal speeches to informal consultation, from letters to newspapers to social media posts. Where we can, in each post we’ll be providing links to further materials. From one month to the next, some of the content will change according to available opportunities for advocacy, while some will stay constant.

Let us know how useful this is (and we’re sorry about the cheesy title)!

1. We have a long way to until we achieve gender equality. Success requires addressing the information dimension of development, in particular through libraries

With 2020 representing 25 years since the Beijing Declaration and Plan of Action, there is global attention to what has been done, and what we still need to do, in order to ensure full gender equality. The Declaration itself highlights key areas related to information, including skills and lifelong learning, access top health and legal information, digital inclusion and broader awareness-raising, where libraries make a difference. IFLA’s analysis shows how many countries have recognised this, and in doing so, provide an example for others. See our briefing on the Declaration and our analysis of the national reports.

2. Our documentary heritage is both precious and at risk. Governments need to act – through law, policy and funding – to support its preservation.

The documentary heritage held in the collections of libraries and other institutions represents the memory of the world – the ideas, innovations and expressions that make us what we are today. Yet too often, this documentary heritage is overlooked in cultural and other policies. A lack of investment in its preservation, inadequate policies, and incomplete legal frameworks can lead to irretrievable loss. UNESCO’s 2015 Recommendation provides a valuable reference point, but uptake and implementation needs to be strengthened. See our briefing on the Recommendation, and new checklist allowing libraries and library associations to assess how well it is being put into action.

3. Meaningful access to the internet is a driver of development. Public access in libraries plays a key part in delivering it, affordably.

Over half of the world’s population now enjoys internet access, a major achievement. As we approach the 31st anniversary of the World Wide Web, it is worth remembering that this still means that billions of people remain offline. Furthermore, there is a growing awareness that simply having the physical possibility to access to the internet does not always mean people are getting the most out of it. Institutions such as libraries, offering good connections, necessary hardware, relevant skills and support, and simply a space for internet use have a well-established role in promoting digital inclusion, affordably. Look out for our communications on 12 March about the anniversary of the World Wide Web, and see our analysis of how libraries are already included in national broadband strategies.

4. Libraries are essential partners for local government in delivering the SDGs locally. We are ready to help: there are almost 430 000 public and community libraries around the world, strongly focused on meeting the information needs of the local areas they serve. They have much to contribute to wider efforts by local government to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals, in many different ways, from supporting skills development and internet access to providing an information point and portal to local open government data. When fully integrated into local government planning, they can not only support cultural development, but support the success of a wide range of policies. See our list of ten roles libraries play in supporting effective local government, and our briefing on what the New Urban Agenda means for libraries.

5. The skills to find, analyse and evaluate information are vital. Libraries are ideal places to develop these: we have never had access to so much information! There is a greater possibility to find and use more content than ever before at any time, anywhere, creating exciting new possibilities for free expression, innovation, and forming communities. To do this, people need to be able to navigate through all the information available, and for this, information skills are essential. Faced with unreliable or deliberately false information online, our best hope in building a sustainable and equitable information society is to promote media and information literacy skills for all. Look out for communications later this month about IFLA’s engagement in a project to boost media literacy skills in a number of European countries.

6. Everyone – and in particular children – has the right to engage in cultural life and access materials reflecting their experience.

The right to participate in the cultural life of the community is a fundamental right, set out in Article 27a of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When this right is denied, quality of life is diminished, and risks of alienation and lack of resilience rise, making the achievement of broader development goals more complex. In education in particular, better results can be achieved when students are able to engage fully by having access to materials that reflect their cultures and use their language. Libraries bring a unique expertise and possibility to do this. See our submission to the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights for more.

7. Gathering, organising and giving access to data and information is at the heart of successful open government policies. Libraries make this happen: the role of good governance is highlighted by SDG16, with transparency at its heart. When citizens can find out about what those in power are doing, and use this information in order to hold them to account, there is greater pressure to take decisions that are in the public interest. Achieving this is about more than just online portals – not only does the information need to be structured properly, but citizens often need help to understand what is there and use it to draw their own conclusions. Libraries are ideally placed to do this, with many great examples already out there. For more, see our blog on libraries and open data.

8. New protections for privacy are welcome, but cannot lead to the destruction of library and archive holdings: a new generation of data protection laws are giving citizens new power to understand, control and even delete information held about them by others. This is potentially a major breakthrough in efforts to make a reality of privacy in the digital age. At the same time, concepts such as the ‘right to erasure’ bring the possibility of efforts to remove references to individuals and their actions held in archival collections. This can lead to holes appearing the historical record, as well as making it more difficult for future researchers to understand the world of today, or to ensure transparency of decision-making. New laws should therefore protect archiving rights as part of the balance between freedom of access to information and expression, and the right to a private life. See the new IFLA-ICA Statement on Privacy Legislation and Archiving for more.

SDG Success as an Information Problem?

IFLA has engaged strongly around the Sustainable Development Goals, both in their preparation in the run up to 2015, and in their delivery in the years that have followed.

In this, we have worked hard to show how libraries contribute to success, and – more importantly – to help library associations and libraries around the world to do the same, in their own contexts.

We have identified the SDG targets – 20 of them! – which implicitly or explicitly refer to the need for access to, and the ability to use, information. We have collected stories and examples on the Library Map of the World, and have a growing collection of expert insights into how information and libraries contribute to individual SDGs in the Development and Access to Information Report.

This approach may work with policy-makers focused on getting success on the individual goals for which they are responsible. But it can often feel difficult to bring this all together at a more general level, and avoid a situation where access to information questions are only viewed, separately, from many different angles.

This is an issue for libraries, given that if there is a better understanding of the cross-cutting importance of information, this could lead to support for institutions focused on equitable, cross-cutting providers of access to information – libraries.

Without it, information (and so libraries) risks falling between stools as an issue, and ultimately being forgotten or neglected.

How to response? One angle could be to work to help decision-makers to understand better how the challenges they face are, at least to some extent, information issues, or information problems.

The idea of ‘information problems’ is not new of course. It is at the basis of work on information literacy in general. It also shows up in economics (where it is seen as a source of market failure), and in health (where it underpins a lot of work on public health), just to give a few examples.

But how to apply this to policy issues, and to encourage governments, in their work towards the SDGs, to think clearly and holistically about the information issues?

Governments themselves – at least in some situations – are already fortunately beginning to understand the information problems that they face in terms of good governance. As set out in an IFLA paper a couple of years ago, the notion of ‘evidence-based policy-making’ is a recognition of just such an information problem.

What about in implementation? How do we encourage policy makers to focus? One approach could be to encourage them to ask the below questions, across their action to implement the SDGs:

  1. Does success depend on individuals being able to find out about new opportunities?
  2. Does success depend on behaviour-change among individuals?
  3. Does success depend on the possibility to respond to change, from the local to the global levels?
  4. Does success depend on innovation improving on existing knowledge?

These questions, hopefully, are not controversial. Yet each one touches on the importance of access to information as a basis for better decision-making, and so policy success, at all levels.

They are all areas where libraries make a difference, as a place to find out about new openings and programmes, to learn about new ways of doing things, to organise and better use information, and to power research.

And in almost every area of policy work, the answer to at least one of the above questions will be yes. For health policy makers, it will be all of them. For employment policy makers, it will be at least questions 1 and 3. For climate change policy, it will be questions 2 to 4.

The same exercise works for policies to deliver other SDGs, at all levels of government. When asked at the top level of policy-planning, this has the potential to make it clear how important information is as a cross-cutting issue, and so to justify action, including by supporting libraries.

 

Clearly, information alone cannot solve all problems. Indeed, it would be unfair to place all the responsibility for policy failures on individuals making the wrong decisions.

But at the same time, ignoring the information problems that exist in almost all overall policy challenges is to take a restricted perspective, and one that risks reducing success.

IFLA will continue to work at the global level to underline the transformative potential of comprehensive solutions to information problems in achieving the SDGs. We welcome your ideas here!

Report on status of Copyright Amendment Bill by Denise Nicholson

Over the past few years, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has been engaged in the reform of copyright laws in South Africa. Indeed, IFLA has submitted on many occasions comments and proposals on draft amendments.

This reform contains ambitious provisions which could have an extremely positive impact on libraries and heritage institutions, enabling the latter to benefit from legal provisions similar to the fair use provision as in the United States. It will also provide a positive example for neighbouring countries.

There is strong opposition, however, from other groups, notably collective management bodies, and from the academic publishing sector, even though.   

Despite the reforms being approved by Parliament, they have yet to be signed by the President, who faces both loud opposition internally, and, more recently, a threat from the US Trade Representative to try and remove South Africa’s Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) trade privileges with the United States.

As part of the week on Fair Use and Fair Dealing, we therefore welcome an update from Denise R. Nicholson, Scholarly Communications Librarian, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

 

REPORT ON STATUS OF COPYRIGHT AMENDMENT BILL

by Denise Nicholson, BA HDip Libr (UNISA); LLM (WITS) Scholarly Communications Librarian, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Denise.Nicholson[at]wits.ac.za

In terms of Section 79 of the Constitution, President Ramaphosa must either sign the Bill within a reasonable period, or, and only if there are constitutionality issues, he must return it to the National Assembly to address those concerns.  The Bill has been on President Ramaphosa’s desk for 10 months (far beyond a ‘reasonable period’).

There has been a lot of support for the Bill internationally, regionally and locally.  However, there has also been strong opposition to the Bill mainly from rights-holders, collecting societies, musicians, some authors and creators (under the umbrella of the Copyright Coalition of South Africa) and international publishing and entertainment conglomerates and collection management organisations.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), a lobby group for 5 large entertainment corporations in America, petitioned the US Government last year to review Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) agreements like AGOA and others with South Africa. They claimed that the exceptions in the Bill are too broad and that American rights-holders would be prejudiced if the Bill is passed. They want the US Trade Representative (USTR) to withdraw the preferential trade benefits that SA currently enjoys.  Apparently, R35 billion in South African exports to the USA are at stake if such a review goes ahead. Ironically, the SA Bill has adopted fair use provisions from the US copyright law, and other provisions enjoyed by other developed countries.  It is also premature for such a review to be considered as the Bill has not been enacted, so there is no possible evidence that American rights-holders’ interests are at stake.  The law would need to be in place for a while before any evidence could be collected in this regard.

In response to the IIPA petition, the US Trade Representative’s Office called for public submissions on this matter and held public hearings on 31 January 2020.  Forty-two submissions were lodged with the USTR. Thirty-two submissions called on the USTR to withdraw its review on trade agreements and the majority supported the Bill, whereas ten submissions opposed the Bill and supported a review of trade agreements.  Stakeholders can still make further submissions until late February 2020.  The Minister of Trade and Industry has met with officials in the US to discuss this matter.   It is not certain whether the USTR will take action in this regard. Asked if she believed South Africa would change the two laws (Copyright Amendment Bill and Performers’ Protection Bill) to meet US concerns, the new US Ambassador to SA, Lana Marks (SA-born) said the laws “must be within every aspect of the Constitution of South Africa”.  The Daily Maverick reports that Marks is confident that South Africa is not going to lose either its GSP or its AGOA access, directly or indirectly.  “It’s not going to happen,” she says, firmly.

Various international and local organisations have written to the President asking him to sign the Bill as a matter of urgency.  BlindSA has written a strong letter to him pointing out he has a constitutional duty to act on the Bill, and that if he does not act by the anniversary of the passing of the Bill by Parliament (i.e. 28 March), then BlindSA will consider taking him to court on this matter.

We hope that the President will act on the Bill soon.

See IFLA’s contribution to the US Trade Representative hearing.

Choosing to Celebrate Rather than Tolerate

As 16 November is the International Day for Tolerance, we pose a simple question:

What, exactly, is tolerance?

Is it a passive acceptance for the practices of other cultures, or rather, can it be an active celebration?

Perhaps everyone can choose for his or herself.

Let’s choose then to celebrate rather than tolerate.

Building Connections

Tolerance is strengthened through building mutual understanding between different cultures and peoples. Therefore, a celebration can be created through deepening this understanding.

Libraries, museums and other memory institutions have a unique role, not only in providing access to culture, but in defining the narratives that helps people connect with it.

This act of storytelling allows for engagement – connecting on a deeper level with other voices, other perspectives and the human-side of our interconnected histories.

Celebrating our differences, what makes us unique, and the stories we have to tell – this is more than tolerance. It is the connection we want to build in the world.

Building Peace in the Minds of Men

The Preamble to the Constitution of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) states:

Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.

Education and exposure to culture builds tolerance by providing opportunities for people to connect, share and learn from one another. A library, an archive, a museum or exhibition can be the medium through which these connections are nurtured.

IFLA’s mission to inspire, engage, enable and connect the Library field helps empower all libraries to be this connection-builder in their own communities.

The Human Library

IFLA’s SDG Stories are rich with examples of libraries being spaces for building connections. The “Human Library” in Kazakhstan is one such example.

In this programme, participants from often discriminated-against groups acted as “human books”, allowing others to ask questions to learn about their experiences. The goal is to use storytelling and connection-building to address the issue of discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, political opinion, gender, sexual orientation and disability.

In the end, there was a sense of community and support created, and participants felt heard and empowered to continue sharing their perspectives.

No matter their resources, libraries can use their institutions to be the driver in bringing people together to share their stories and build mutual respect.

Four participants and Organisers from the Human Library Pose together

“Human Books and Organizers ” by Marina Poyarkova is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Take Action

We challenge our network not just to tolerate, but to celebrate, share and nurture our diversity, building a stronger and more connected world.

IFLA will continue supporting UNESCO’s mission to build peace through education, science and culture during the 40th Session of the General Conference. Read more about our participation here: Key Issues for Libraries at the UNESCO General Conference.