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The information agenda
  The British Council is a major partner in the global knowledge initiative. This initiative has arisen from the growing recognition that information and knowledge are the foundation for equitable and sustainable development and key in the fight against poverty, injustice and social exclusion. Awareness and information on governance issues is critical if state institutions are to be responsive to the basic needs of citizens and if citizens are to be enabled to articulate their demands and exercise their rights of access to government

Promoting the role of new information and communications technologies to generate, access and exchange information and knowledge at all levels of society is central to the work of the British Council globally.

Promoting awareness of and improving access to information on governance issues is one of the four priority areas of governance work that the British Council undertakes in Pakistan. Below are some examples of our work in this area.

The Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) held a one week training course hosted by the British Council in Karachi from 6 to 10 March 2000 titled ‘Reporting Abuse, Rape and Other Human Rights Issues relating to Women’. Twenty-five senior reporters of the print media attended the certified, free course .Photo: Reporting Abuse, Rape and Other Human Rights Issues

The purpose of the course was to teach journalists how to report, effectively and sympathetically, abuse, rape and other human rights issues relating to women. The topics covered included the rights of the minorities, freedom of expression, the role of the press in promoting human rights, Islam and human rights, and more.

The course was led by Sue Lloyd Roberts, a BBC special correspondent who has won many awards for her human rights reporting.

Chief Guest Asma Jehangir, prominent women’s rights lawyer and activist, delivered the keynote address on the inaugural. Nazish Brohi, Project Director, Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid acted as local CPU co-ordinator.

Electoral Monitoring Database Project

Through the year the British Council will be working with the Sustainable Development Network Programme (SDNP) and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan on a pilot project to develop an electoral monitoring database in Pakistan.

Funded by the British High Commission, the project will develop an election monitoring database to be hosted on the World Wide Web. This will enable accurate, comprehensive and impartially-gathered electoral data to be made easily accessible to the wider public through the Internet. The database will support full searching of all data along with the capacity for report generation arising from searches.

The electoral database will be a key resource in supporting the work of electoral reform and the rebuilding of institutions essential to the operation of the democratic process in Pakistan.

Gender Reporting Workshop

As part of the British Council’s rolling programme of capacity development for the media, a two-week course on reporting gender and social issues was held at the Lahore Press Club from 29 November to 10 December 1999. The workshop leader was Ms Julie McCreadie from the Thomson Foundation, UK. The workshop consisted of lectures, field trips, report writing and assessment exercises. Twenty Lahore-based journalists were trained.

The objective of the workshop was to ensure improvement in the quality of coverage of gender and social issues leading to greater awareness among the public and positive attitudinal and behavioural change. The event was organised by the British Council and the Lahore Press Club with financial assistance from the British High Commission and the Thomson Foundation.

If you'd like to know more about our governance work in Pakistan, please contact Arshed.Bhatti@britishcouncil.org.pk.

For information on the British Council's global policy in this field take a look at our main site.

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