TVE Asia Pacific joins ComPlus Alliance

TVE Asia Pacific (TVEAP) has joined the Com Plus Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development (Com+).

TVEAP becomes an Associate Partner, joining the global network whose members include the CGIAR, IFEJ, IPS, IUCN – the World Conservation Union, UNEP and the World Bank.

The Com+ alliance is a partnership of international organisations and communications professionals from diverse sectors committed to using communications to advance a vision of sustainable development that integrates its three pillars: economic, social and environmental.

By offering a platform to share expertise, develop best practice and create synergies, Com+ hopes to actively support creative and inspiring communications across the world.

"The addition of TVEAP as an associate partner to the Com+ communications platform represents a step forward in the way of becoming a global clearinghouse for communications on sustainable development. TVEAP's regional scope gives Com+ a unique potential for advancing innovative projects in Asia," says Sergio Jellinek from the Steering Committee of Com+.

"We fully share the Com+ Alliance's commitment to using communications to advance sustainable development," says Nalaka Gunawardene, TVEAP's Director and CEO. "Becoming partners will open up new opportunities for collaborating with like-minded groups and networks."

As Com+ Associate Partners, TVEAP plans to explore collaborative projects in producing new public TV content, distributing them copyrights-free in the majority world, and training film-makers and TV journalists on development-sensitive story telling.

In recent years, TVEAP has bilaterally collaborated with several Com+ partners on media and communication projects in Asia. One example was training TV news reporters on covering environmental issues during the World Conservation Congress in Bangkok in 2004.

Com+ provides a communications platform, including an online resource center for media, communications professionals, researchers, academics and civil society to learn, exchange and debate on issues related to sustainable development and communications.

Its key activities include delivering news and feature articles, reports, films, documentaries, radio programmes, as well as organising international meetings of policy-makers on key sustainable development issues.

Com+ gives effect to the recognition at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002) that partnerships can complement the inter-governmental system and help drive the action needed on the ground. It builds on the premise that many successes in advancing sustainable development have been aided by the work of mass media and communication professionals.

Established in 1996, Television for Education – Asia Pacific (TVEAP) is a regionally operating media foundation using television, video and web to communicate sustainable development and humanitarian issues. It produces and distributes editorially independent content about how individuals and communities are pursuing better lives in the world’s largest region, home to half of humanity.