Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced that the UK will commit £18 million to improve media freedom across the world.

The new Global Media Defence Fund – to be administered by UNESCO – will support, train and provide legal support for journalists in the most dangerous parts of the world.

The UK will provide £3 million and Canada, the co-hosts of the Global Conference for Media Freedom, will make an additional Can $1 million contribution to help kick-start the Fund.

The UK and Canada will use the Global Conference for Media Freedom to lobby countries to contribute to the fund, and sign a pledge committing them to leverage diplomatic networks and take action together on abuses against the media.

The fund will support media freedom in a variety of ways, including:

• defending journalists, including through supporting access to legal services
• training journalists, including in personal safety
• establishing peer support networks for freelance journalists
• promoting citizen journalism, including in conflict and post-conflict settings
• supporting countries in developing National Action Plans through a dedicated Task Force involving UNESCO and others
• assisting a High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom by funding its Secretariat

Separately, from Department for International Development funding, the £15 million Protecting Media Freedom programme will seek to tackle the root causes of the global crisis in independent media.

During a keynote speech at the Global Conference for Media Freedom the Foreign Secretary made the argument that media freedom is “a universal cause”.

Jeremy Hunt, Foreign Secretary, said:

Today we are joined by delegations from over 120 countries, including 60 ministers, and more than 1,500 journalists, academics and campaigners….never before have so many countries come together in this cause.

And today we send a strong message that media freedom is not a Western but a universal value…. At its best, a free media both protects society from the abuse of power and helps to release the full potential of a country.

He argued that “the strongest safeguard against the dark side of power is accountability and scrutiny – and few institutions fulfil that role more effectively than a free media”.

The Foreign Secretary added: “The open exchange of ideas through a free media allows the genius of a society to breathe, releasing the originality and creativity of the entire population. Societies which embrace free debate make a disproportionate contribution to the advance of human knowledge.”