Officials of the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Ethiopia participated in a regional seminar on “Multilingualism and Multilateralism in International Organisations: Challenges, Issues, and Prospects for Inclusive Governance”, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Addis Ababa recently. It was organised by the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF), in collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC).
The event was convened by the OIF Representation to the African Union (AU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), focusing on the current status and future prospects of multilingualism in International and Regional Organisations (IROs) across Africa. The key objective was to advocate for multilingualism and formulate actionable recommendations for inclusive and effective language policies at the regional level.
The seminar underscored the central role of multilingualism in promoting inclusive governance, democratic participation and the protection of cultural and linguistic diversity. It served as a platform for exchanging best practices and identifying strategic approaches to strengthen multilingualism within IROs, including capacity building for conference management services (translators, interpreters and digital solutions); human resources and recruitment policies that promote linguistic diversity; and development of effective communication tools and funding mechanisms to sustain multilingual operations within IROs.
The concept note of the seminar stated that it is through languages that international organisations recognise and respect the diversity of the peoples and cultures of their member States.
It said that promoting and respecting multilingualism is essential for fostering democratic dialogue, enabling citizen participation and upholding good governance in multilateral settings.
Despite formal commitments to multilingualism, the seminar highlighted a persistent shift towards monolingualism or bilingualism within many IROs. To counter this trend, it was recommended that organisations adopt a more proactive and systematic approach in promoting and safeguarding linguistic diversity by establishing monitoring and oversight mechanisms to ensure compliance with multilingual principles and standards; formulating inclusive language policies that guarantee equity, equality and respect for all languages; and leveraging AI-based tools and digital technologies to support real-time translation, interpretation and multilingual content dissemination and inclusive communication.
