The first UNESCO Global Media and Information Literacy Alliance Board is announced for the period 2025-2027, marking a significant milestone in the governance and strategic development of the global network of UNESCO. The new Board (former ISC- International Steering Committee) is the Alliance’s primary decision-making and coordination body on media and information literacy policies and strategies within UNESCO MIL Alliance, bringing together over 300 organizations and 200 individual experts from over 100 countries. The Board serves as the main global point of contact with UNESCO on all MIL-related matters, supporting capacity building and informed implementation worldwide.

The Global MIL Board brings together representatives from across UNESCO’s five geographic regions, as well as leading academic, research, and specialist experts in media and information literacy, all members of UNESCO MIL Alliance. Through its mandate, it facilitates the identification, curation, and dissemination of high-quality MIL resources, tools, and research across the leading UNESCO network. At the same time, it acts as an advisor and advocate, contributing and empowering international MIL policy discussions alongside UNESCO.

UNESCO Global Board 2025-2027 is composed of 10 geographical representatives reflecting 5 global regions of UNESCO, 3 academic / research representatives from UNESCO Chairs, universities, and research institutions strengthening the link between research and practice and 5 specialist representatives, as technical and thematic experts on priority themes identified by the Board.

Irene Andriopoulou from Greece, EKKOMED Director of Education and Heritage and Executive Director of CIFEJ – The International Center of Films for Children & Young People, is the new Geographical representative for Europe and North America, next to Lexie Kirconnell-Kawana, CEO of Impress in the UK. Geographical representatives act as two-way communicators between the Global Board and Alliance members in their regions. They convey regional priorities to the Board and support members at the regional level.

To this end, Ms Andriopoulou, carrying over two decades of experience on media literacy policies and practices, will act as a liaison between the two vast regions’ developments in the field and UNESCO’s vision on empowering citizens through MIL towards ensuring sustainable democratic societies.

As she quotes: “My key premise and upper goal are to succeed in raising public awareness on the necessity of creating a MIL citizen in a democratic society, from pre-school age and continuing throughout lifelong learning experiences. In today’s complex reality, where everyone is talking about AI as a tool to expand our capacities, I would like to suggest taking lessons from the past and inspire ourselves from the very beginning ; root ourselves to Ancestral Intelligence that first explored the need for cultivating knowledges and balancing cultural differences in our ever-changing ecosystems. And, the solution will appear somehow magically, in the default state of the human being.”

You may join the UNESCO MIL Alliance here: https://community.unesco.org/milAlliance/s/?language=en_US

CIFEJ was founded under the auspices of UNESCO in 1955, committed to advocating for children’s rights in audiovisual storytelling and screen education while ensuring diverse cultural narratives in the context of children’s audiovisual media production and education.