The existence of #international_day predates the establishment of the United Nations, but the #UN has embraced them as a powerful advocacy tool. The United Nations observes designated days, weeks, years, and decades, each with a theme, or topic. By creating special observances, the United Nations promotes international awareness and action on these issues.
Each international day offers many actors the opportunity to organize activities related to the theme of the day. Organizations and offices of the United Nations system, and most importantly, governments, civil society, the public and private sectors, schools, universities and, more generally, citizens, make an international day a springboard for awareness-raising actions.
The majority of observances have been established by resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly, although some have been designated by UN specialized agencies. The United Nations also observes anniversaries of key events in its history.
Who chooses them and how?
It’s the most representative organ of the Organization, the General Assembly, which designates a particular date as an International Day. International days are proposed to the UN General Assembly by Member States.
The General Assembly then decides by consensus whether to adopt the resolution establishing the particular day.
The themes of international days are always linked to the main fields of action of the United Nations, namely the maintenance of international peace and security, the promotion of sustainable development, the protection of human rights, and the guarantee of international law and humanitarian action.
How do we measure the impact of these Days?
The international observances (which also include weeks, years and decades) are some of the most visited pages on the UN website. Each international day has a dedicated website, available in the UN’s six official languages.
The #internationalday also serve as an indicator of the interest that a given subject attracts in each part of the world.
To find this out, we look at the level of engagement that these commemorations receive in different regions and languages across the world.
see United Nations website for more
Let’s test our knowledge, who initiates most International Holidays? United Nations or ? Utilise the comment section #join_the_discussion
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