The IAEA multilingual websites have marked five years since launching with a milestone quarter of a million combined visits in June 2023.
Since expanding its reach to Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish speakers, IAEA.org has increased the monthly traffic to the language sites by more than 4000 per cent compared to their first month of existence. An exception rather than the rule in the UN system, multilingual websites provide a vital tool for multilateralism, IAEA Director of the Office of Public Information and Communication (OPIC) Sophie Boutaud de la Combe said.
“If we check our numbers, half of the visitors to the English website are from only five countries, four of them are English-speaking countries and the fifth is Austria, where we are headquartered,” Boutaud de la Combe explained. “As mandated by its Statute, the Agency seeks to expand and accelerate the contributions of nuclear science and technology applications. Multilingualism helps increase global public knowledge and understanding of nuclear solutions to tackle the challenges of our time for human and animal health, food, water and energy security, ocean protection and climate change”, she added.
The IAEA was recognized as having one of the most notable multilingual public information strategies in the United Nations family, in the latest report by the Joint Inspection Unit.
Launched in June 2018, the IAEA’s multilingual websites comprise 500 pages, each in six languages, with general information on the IAEA mandate. Every week the website features fresh news materials in six languages covering the diverse work of the Agency, as well as targeted regional news materials.
“We used our expertise to enable the website to become truly multilingual and continue to translate regular updates as well as other multilingual materials that are available online”, Chetna Lakhoo-Verbeek, Director of the Division of Conference and Document Services (MTCD) said.
Such multilingual materials include the electronic version of the quarterly magazine for the general public, the IAEA Bulletin, each edition of which is now being released simultaneously in six languages; a wide range of technical publications for scientists and experts that have seen more than a 400 per cent annual increase in languages issued other than English; and thousands of legal documents that can be accessed by decision-makers via IAEA.org.
The IAEA also offers a multilingual newsletter with almost 40 000 subscribers and social media accounts that reach over 65 000 followers via Arabic Facebook, Chinese Weibo, French Facebook, Russian Facebook and Spanish Facebook.
