Reaching the Outside World

Special Events

UNDP Administrator Helen Clark addressing the gathering for the 2010 Picture This Photo contest awards ceremony at UN headquarters; also in photo F. Mark Gumz, President, Olympus Corporation of the Americas; and Paola Messana, AFP New York Bureau Chief.

Special events run the gamut from the commemoration of UN days to award ceremonies to exhibits and conferences. They may involve speeches, panels of experts, printed or electronic information, or the decoration of a venue with banners and other materials.

Special events can be labour intensive and expensive. Success requires thorough planning, including an adequate lead time to manage all the details. From the start, events should have a clear justification, with all activities directed towards answering the questions: why this issue, and why now?

The kind of event and its scope should be tied to the objective you are trying to accomplish and the audiences you need to reach. If you want to attract media attention, integrate a media strategy into the overall planning, as journalists will have separate requirements (press releases, interview arrangements, etc.). Media work can take place before, during and after the event. As an example, see the MDG Training for Youth Politicians. Events can provide excellent opportunities to form partnerships. These can extend outreach, allowing partners to tap into each other’s constituencies—for example, by combining mailing lists for invitations. Partners also share labour and other preparation costs.

As an example, UNDP organizes an annual photo contest, Picture This, in partnership with Olympus Corporation, The Agence France-Presse (AFP) Foundation, and the UN’s Department of Information. The contests tackle different topics related to UNDP’s work. The 2010 contest focused on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aiming at showing the inspirational work that is already being done in developing and developed countries to achieve them. The photo contest awards ceremony, which took place at the same time than the MDGs Summit in New York City, helped to bring much needed attention to the quickly approaching deadline for achieving the Goals, while reminding governments about their commitment to fight extreme poverty globally. The winning photos have been exhibited worldwide. Equally, the 2009, Africa-centred Picture This: Caring for the Earth competition resulted in an international traveling exhibit (New York, Tokyo, Osaka, Johannesburg, St Louis (Senegal) and Geneva). The Picture This contests have been extensively covered by international and national media in many countries, and have become an effective advocacy tool to highlight the organization’s strategic goals and messages.

More than 30 international football players from top teams around the world competed in the eighth Match Against Poverty hosted by Olympiacos Football Club in Piraeus, Greece in December 2010 to support UNDP programmes in Haiti and Pakistan.

Similarly, the Match Against Poverty has been held each year since 2003, at the initiative of star footballers and UNDP Goodwill Ambassadors Zinédine Zidane and Ronaldo, to raise awareness of and to advocate for the MDGs, and to raise funds that support specific development projects selected by UNDP. Ronaldo and Zidane each captain an international side for this friendly match, which seeks to remind everyone that they are responsible for ensuring the achievement of the MDGs, The Match has taken place in Basel, Düsseldorf, Madrid, Marseille, Malaga, Fez, Lisbon and Athens. The Match is seen on television in many countries around the world conveying one strong message: “let us all team up to end poverty”.

A final example of a special event took place on October 10^th 2010, when UNDP joined the One Day on Earth community and filmed in over 100 countries worldwide. More than 8,000 film makers from across the globe and in all 192 countries, filmed on a single day. The result is a snap shot of our world in a 24-hour period and a video archive of unprecedented scope that UNDP has full access to. For more information go to: One Day on Earth.

To facilitate information sharing and coordination between different Bureaus and COs, the Office of Communications prepares a Corporate Communications calendar. This calendar allows anyone in UNDP to stay informed of major global events, as well as corporate UNDP events, and is essential when it comes to planning our communications outreach. To access the calendar and to obtain more information on how to submit an event, go to: http://intra.undp.org/coa/calendar.shtml.

[top]