2025:Program/Poster: Alliances that matter: UN agencies and Wikimedia

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Session title: Poster: Alliances that matter: UN agencies and Wikimedia

Session type: Poster

Track: Partnerships

Language: en

This poster will attempt to broadly summarize some of the major past and ongoing partnership initiatives with UN agencies, as well as work done by Wikipedians in Residence in those agencies, and shed light on the long lasting impact for the Wikimedia community.

Description

UN organisations and Wikimedia organisations have collaborated in the past 10 or so years to produce work including

• OHCHR, Wikimedia Argentina and the Wikimedia Foundation working together to improve the quality and quantity of human rights content on Wikipedia.
• UNESCO and Wikimedia Sweden working on the FindingGLAMs project to create the first worldwide map of cultural heritage institutions.
• The Wikimedia Foundation being a partner in the EQUALS Global Partnership, a network to bridge the gender divide whose founding partners include United Nations University, ITU and UN Women.
• World Health Organization and the Wikimedia Foundation made a formal partnership focused on improving information related to COVID 19 on Wikimedia projects. Similarly, UNFPA and Wikimedia Sweden worked together to improve content on Covid-19 in relation to maternal health.
• Wikimedia Sverige worked with OHCHR, UNFPA, UNESCO, ITU and UN Women to bridge the gender gap on Wikipedia, for example through the WikiGap campaign.
• UNESCO, Wikimedia Sverige and Wikimedia Italia produced a photography exhibition on cultural heritage at risk, displayed at the United Nations Office at Geneva, UNESCO HQ in Paris and 10 other locations.
• The German Commission for UNESCO, Wikimedia Deutschland and the North Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Centre (HBZ) co-published Open Content A Practical Guide to Using Creative Commons Licences, a booklet providing practical guidelines for the use and application of open content licences.
• In 2023 and 2024, the UNESCO Memory of the World programme, the Khalili Foundation and Wikimedia UK had a collaboration to improve the representation of the Memory of the World documentary heritage register on the Wikimedia projects (2023-2024)
• FAO, UNESCO, Wikimedia Sweden and Wikimedia UK’s “Wikiproject for a United Nations of Knowledge” was recognized by Expo Osaka 2025 as a global best practice
• And other efforts not mentionned here…

Over the years, several Wikimedians in Residence involved in several different UN agencies, such as

• WIPO: Florence Devouard, Salvador Alcántar, Mervat Salman are currency working as Wikipedians in Residence. An overview of their collective effort is shared on WikiProject:United Nations/WIPO
• FAO: John Cummings, an overview can be found at WikiProject_United_Nations/FAO.
• UNESCO:John Cummings, Sandra Fauconnier, Martin Poulter…
• UNDP: Bobbyshabangu…

The poster is proposed as an addition to another poster which will summarize the main sources of information and content the United Nations produces across its areas of expertise, categorised using the Sustainable Development Goals.

How does your session relate to the event theme, Wikimania@20 – Inclusivity. Impact. Sustainability?

Multipartner efforts involving UN agencies and Wikimedia chapters, as well as Wikimedians-in-Residence, contribute to building reciprocal trust and understanding and ensuring the sustainability of knowledge-sharing over time.

The specialized agencies of the United Nations have a broad mandate, global reach and commitment to sustainability. Their knowledge resources are high-quality, multilingual, freely available, often published under Creative Commons licences, and maintained over time.

Collaborative efforts include extending high quality content coverage on impactful topics beyond the English language (French, Spanish, Arabic). The Wikimedia content (articles, data, media) improved through the partnerships increases the level of trust into the Wikimedia movement overall. The diversity of people engaged over the years has increased the long term sustainability of the initiatives and the relationship with UN agencies.

What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?

Everyone can participate in this session

Speakers

• Florence Devouard

Username:Anthere (She/her). French. Languages : FR N; EN-4.

* Co-Executive Director of Wiki in Africa

* Wikipedian-in-Residence at World Intellectual Property Rights (WIPO)

* Former chairwoman of Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees

* Co-founder, former Vice-Chair and currently member of Wikimédia France Chapter

* Wikipedian since 2002.

As well as

* Financial auditor an member of Les sans pagEs UserGroup

* Member of m:Wikimedians for offline wikis UserGroup (contact member for the affiliate)

* Member of the Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network UserGroup

* Formerly treasurer of WikiFranca (hub-to-be for French speaking wikimedia groups)

* Board member of Open Food Facts

* Vice-Chair of Ynternet.org

Key words : Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Africa, IP rights, Open Movement, Community Building, Open Source, Creative Commons, Life-long learning, accountability, Gender Gap, Equity

• mervat salam

Mervat, an active wikipedian since 2012, a Wikipedian in Residence at WIPO since 2024.

• eric luth

I am Project Manager for Involvement and Advocacy at Wikimedia Sverige. In that capacity, I have recently worked primarily with international partnerships, such as with the UN agencies, and advocacy for the open movement at the national, European and international level. I have an M.A. in Comparative Literature, and live in Stockholm.