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Organized by Wikimedia France and WikiFranca, under the theme, Freedom, Equity, Reliability, the conference reaffirmed a shared commitment to openness, multilingualism, accessibility and trustworthy information in the digital age.
Throughout the week, UNESCO contributed to the programme through a series of events spanning access to open knowledge, information integrity and multilingualism, reinforcing its commitment to open access to information as a public good.
As Wikipedia celebrates 25 years, we are entering a new era for knowledge. Artificial intelligence is transforming how people discover and consume information, making human collaboration more essential than ever.
Bernadette MeehanCEO, Wikimedia Foundation
Shared mission for open knowledge
UNESCO and the Wikimedia movement share a common vision: a world in which everyone, regardless of gender, origin or language, can access and contribute to the sum of human knowledge. This includes preserving the documentary heritage held by archives, libraries and museums, and making it available for present and future generations.
Built on this commitment, the two organizations have developed a growing partnership grounded in the principle that knowledge should be open, collaboratively developed and available to all as a global public good. Through their joint work on several subjects, they aim to ensure that digital transformation strengthens, rather than limits, equitable access to knowledge.
Knowledge belongs to all humanity and is a global public good. Together, UNESCO and Wikimedia can keep documentary heritage and knowledge open, trusted, multilingual and accessible to everyone in the age of artificial intelligence.
Mariya GabrielUNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information
Protecting free and reliable knowledge
UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, Mariya Gabriel, opened the ceremony highlighting that access to free, reliable and inclusive knowledge is a core element of the right to freedom of expression. She called for stronger action to close persistent knowledge gaps, particularly for underrepresented languages, memory institutions and communities.
According to her, knowledge has never been more accessible, yet the conditions for trustworthy, free and inclusive information have never been more fragile.
Ms Gabriel’s keynote emphasized the importance of open solutions – Open Educational Resources, Open Access, Open Data and Open-Source Software – in ensuring that artificial intelligence serves humanity while respecting human rights and cultural diversity.
Information integrity on climate change
On 21 July, at the pre-conference on Information Integrity and Climate Change, UNESCO’s Director for Digital Inclusion, Policies and Transformation, Guilherme Canela, presented the Global Initiative jointly developed by UNESCO, the Brazilian government and the United Nations to strengthen research on climate disinformation and to support journalists, scientists and researchers working to address it. Since its launch at the G20 Leaders Summit in Rio de Janeiro in November 2024, the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change has selected 300 projects from more than 500 proposals submitted from over 100 countries.
Multilingualism and the limits of the digital commons
On 24 July, UNESCO joined a panel on linguistic diversity online, which discussed how open knowledge platforms can help preserve overlooked languages, as well as the challenges these platforms face: reliance on volunteers, the dominance of widely spoken languages and barriers to digital access.
The discussion drew on UNESCO’s work on multilingualism online, its 2003 Recommendation on multilingualism and universal access to cyberspace and recent Universal Acceptance Policy Brief, which encourages digital systems to support all languages and scripts. Participants stressed that the internet and AI systems trained on it should reflect the full diversity of the world’s languages and cultures. They also highlighted the need to record and digitize endangered languages, including through possible inscription on the Memory of the World International Register.
By contributing to Wikimania 2026, UNESCO reaffirmed that freedom of expression and access to open, reliable and multilingual knowledge is a foundation of inclusive and democratic societies, lifelong learning and sustainable development.
READ MORE: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/wikipedias-25th-anniversary-advancing-open-knowledge-and-information-integrity?hub=701
