APO Group (www.APO-opa.com) the leading pan-African communications and business consultancy, announced today that it has joined the Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy (GAPMIL) (https://bit.ly/34D5Uj5).

Created by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), GAPMIL is a groundbreaking movement working to promote international cooperation to ensure all citizens have access to media and information competencies.

As part of the collaboration with GAPMIL, APO Group Founder and Chairman, Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, has been invited to participate in an online forum at the annual UNESCO Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Conference (https://bit.ly/3oEGAkE).

The Mobilizing Partnerships and Resources Forum will be held on Friday 30th October from 9.30 CET. This year, the theme of the UNESCO MIL Conference is: “Resisting Disinfodemic: Media and Information Literacy for everyone and by everyone”. 

The aim of the conference is to improve global resilience to ‘fake news’ in all its forms.

UNESCO proposes the systematic and wide scale promotion of media and information literacy to help tackle a ‘disinfodemic’ that has worsened during the COVID-19 crisis. By engaging major stakeholders around the world from governments and media organizations, UNESCO is hoping to drive better media literacy at all levels of formal and informal education.

The event is the largest of its kind in the world, and APO Group will be joining global GAPMIL partners that include Twitter, the European Commission, and the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Education. 

Nicolas’s role in Friday’s forum will be to discuss the ways in which he and APO Group have always promoted authentic, credible content in a chaotic world of ‘fake news’ and unvalidated information.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, APO Group launched their Coronavirus Initiative for Africa (https://bit.ly/31POmOQ), donating resources and expertise to support African governments, institutions and official organizations in the fight against the disease. 

Since April, APO Group has distributed thousands of press releases free of charge for governments and health authorities in more than 40 African countries. The company also organizes regular press conferences for the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa, and the African Union’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) (www.AfricaCDC.org), providing Africans with vital information about the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

APO Group has teamed up with mobile news application OPERA (www.Opera.com) to ensure vital, fact-checked and potentially life-saving COVID-19 content reaches 120 million people across Africa.

This commitment to connecting audiences with trusted content from bona fide sources has been the cornerstone of APO’s approach for many years, and makes Nicolas perfectly placed to provide useful insights at the forum.

“I’m extremely proud to have the opportunity to join GAPMIL and contribute to such a prestigious and important conference,” said Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, Founder and Chairman of APO Group. “This is a subject that is close to my heart. It has always been part of APO Group’s mission to advocate for the truth, and ensure the integrity of publicly accessible information. In the future, we look forward to sharing our experiences with leading figures within the media and information literacy community as we take on this serious problem together.”

The UNESCO forum “MOBILIZING PARTNERSHIPS AND RESOURCES FOR MEDIA AND INFORMATION LITERACY” takes place on 30th October 2020. For further information on this and other events happening during MIL Week 2020, visit: https://bit.ly/3kFj0ls.