On 6 August 2021, the Third SCO Media Forum was held via videoconference, chaired by Tajikistan. The event was an opportunity for information agencies and specialised ministries of the SCO member states to speak about the SCO media space as an effective instrument of cooperation.
Deputy Secretary-General of the SCO Grigory Logvinov delivered welcoming remarks to the forum participants on behalf of SCO Secretary-General Vladimir Norov and conveyed his greetings.
In his message, Vladimir Norov underscored that the current forum has special importance. Above all, it is being held in the year of the SCO's 20th anniversary, which is extensively marked within the SCO space. Over the two decades, the SCO has traversed a long way of institution-building, agenda establishment, and reaching a new quality of relations between its member states marked by signing a six-party agreement on long-term good neighbourliness, friendship and cooperation in 2007, the first such multilateral treaty in Eurasia.
The Secretary-General noted that at the other extreme, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the entire global system of interstate communication. The coronavirus makes no difference between large and small, developed and developing, rich and poor, secular and religious countries.
The epidemic has aggressively intruded upon all areas of human life, undermining production and marketing chains, bringing confusion to international communication and largely blocking tourism, cultural and humanitarian exchanges. Under the circumstances, active work in the information space, including the media, has a special importance and relevance.
Vladimir Norov pointed out that the SCO Development Strategy Towards 2025 emphasises the importance of information support of the Organisation's activities, shaping a favourable image of the Organisation for citizens in the SCO member states, and its accurate image in the world and the region, which is to boost rapprochement of the member states and their peoples and strengthen good-neighbourliness and mutual trust between them. The strategy is aimed at continuing contacts and exchanges in the media, their regular support with relevant materials on the SCO's current activities, its political, economic, cultural and humanitarian achievements, as well as at placing such information on the SCO in international publications.
The final Declaration of the SCO Heads of State Council meeting adopted last year in Moscow stressed the need for developing contacts between the media, including in the digital domain, and between the press services of government bodies.
In conclusion, Vladimir Norov expressed his certainly that this forum would give an additional impetus to the efforts to formulate a unified information strategy of the SCO member states that meets the needs of modern life.
The participants discussed various ways of interaction to cover the upcoming SCO Heads of State Council meeting to be held in Dushanbe on 16-17 September. They also expressed their opinions on the further development of their cooperation with the available SCO mechanisms.
The participants adopted a resolution based on the forum's results.
Reference: The SCO Media Forum is held annually by the state currently presiding in the SCO. Formerly such platforms were held in Beijing and Bishkek in 2018 and 2019.