We are proud to announce that Germany has donated 300.000 Euro to the Global Media Defense Fund (GMDF). This will bring the German contributions to the fund to a total of over 1.4 Mio. Euro, making Germany one of its largest donors. The GMDF supports initiatives promoting media freedom and the support of journalists who live and work in situations of crisis globally. Local, regional and global non-profit organizations that work on bolstering legal protection of journalists and media workers can apply for funding by submitting proposals to the fund’s annual calls for Partnerships. The fund is consistently administered by UNESCO. Germany’s Permanent Delegate, Ambassador Kerstin Pürschel and UNESCO Assistant Director General for Communication and Information, Mr. Tawfik Jelassi, signed the funding agreement on 29 November 2024.

GMDF is one of the tools of the Media Freedom Coalition (MFC), a group of 51 states including Germany, who engage in enhancing press freedom and protection of journalists worldwide. Together with Estonia, Germany is at present co-chairing the Coalition. MFC organizes or participates in several events related to press freedom, including the annual World Press Freedom Day (WPFD). In the follow-up to the 2024 World Press Freedom Day in Santiago de Chile, both co-chairs organized a briefing at UNESCO HQ in Paris to inform the UNESCO Member States of the outcomes in Santiago. The Federal Government of Germany and UNESCO are also seeking synergies by cooperating in the framework of the German Hannah-Arendt-Initiative (HAI), jointly funded by the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media and driven by partner organizations such as Deutsche Welle Akademie, JX Fund, MiCT and ECPMF. HAI’s projects include safety training measures for journalists, regional scholarship programmes and establishing centers for exiled journalists. A strong focus lies on support to journalists from Afghanistan, Belarus, Central America, Myanmar, Russia, Sudan and Ukraine.