Background Information
- On this page, you will find background information on the establishment of the Committee on Information, its mandate and membership, with links to the full text of the three main resolutions mentioned below.
Establishment
At its 34th session, the General Assembly decided to maintain the Committee to Review United Nations Public Information Policies and Activities, established under Assembly resolution 33/115 C of 18 December 1978, which would be known as the Committee on Information.
Mandate
In its resolution 34/182 of 18 December 1979, the General Assembly decided to maintain the Committee to Review United Nations Public Information Policies and Activities, established by its resolution 33/115 C of 18 December 1978, which would be known as the Committee on Information, and to increase its membership from 41 to 66. In section I, paragraph 2, of resolution 34/182, the Assembly requested the Committee:
- To continue to examine United Nations public information policies and activities, in the light of the evolution of international relations, particularly during the past two decades, and of the imperatives of the establishment of the new international economic order and of a new world information and communication order;
- To evaluate and follow up the efforts made and the progress achieved by the United Nations system in the field of information and communications; and
- To promote the establishment of a new, more just and more effective world information and communication order intended to strengthen peace and international understanding and based on the free circulation and wider and better-balanced dissemination of information and to make recommendations thereon to the General Assembly.
Membership
In its resolution 35/201 of 16 December 1980, the General Assembly expressed its satisfaction with the work of the Committee, approved its report and the recommendations of its Ad Hoc Working Group, reaffirmed the mandate given to the Committee in its resolution 34/182 and decided to increase the membership of the Committee from 66 to 67. At its organizational session in 1980, the Committee agreed that the principle of geographical rotation would be applied to all the officers of the Committee and that they should be elected for two-year terms of office.
Over the years, the membership of the Committee has continued to grow. At its 62nd session, the General Assembly decided to increase the membership of the Committee on Information from 110 to 112 and to appoint Antigua and Barbuda and Zambia as members of the Committee on Information.
