Resolution submitted to IFLA General Assembly

Cape Town, 19 August 2015

Access to information and knowledge is also a question of recognition of language diversity. Each one should be allowed to express themseves and access to information they neeed in their own language or in another language in which they have good skills.

Multilingualism is important to IFLA itself to ensure its role of trusted global voice of libraries and information community.

Considering that this dimension of language diversity in Access to Information :

• has, inside IFLA,  recently encountered decisions which contradict IFLA’s own language Policy spirit (http://www.ifla.org/language-policy ), such as:
  • the deletion of logistic means formerly given by IFLA to language teams in order to facilitate their work of  information and documents translation of that IFLA itself whish to be translated in the seven official languages of the Federation,
  • the decision that « convenings » organized in the frame of the International Advocacy Program (IAP) should be only in English for whole Africa, Asia and Europe and require « strong English language skills »
• is, until now, absent of the new IFLA Strategic Plan and its Key Initiatives,

IFLA General Assembly request the Governing Board :

• to take further steps, consistent with its own language policy and its core values,  to promote expression and understanding within the seven IFLA official languages,
• to introduce in the final formulation of the Strategic Plan 2015-2016 and its Key Initiatives the recognition and encouragement of linguistic diversity as a factor in improving access to information and knowledge.

Resolution submited by :

Cfibd, represented by its President, Franck Hurinville,
AIFBD, represented by its Vice-president, Marwa El Sahn,
IFLA-Arabic Language Center represented by its Director, Dina Youssef
IFLA-French Language Center for Africa represented by Mandiaye Ndiaye