This is a not-to-be-missed rendezvous for the multilingual production editors of the Department for General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM).
Every year, in June and July, the six language teams – now part of the Content Services Unit in the Meetings and Publishing Division – have the pleasure of working with the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) to produce one of its major publications, the Sustainable Development Goals Report, which charts progress towards realizing the 17 Goals based on millions of data points collected by the department.
The success of this colour publication comes from years of actively refining its production process.
It is driven by two equally important factors: continuous communication between both entities that allows the report to evolve in real time and respect for the document as a multilingual publication at every stage of the production process.
The base template evolves and is updated every year. Layout changes are made across all six templates as necessary, with due consideration to the expansion rates of the translated content. Data and narratives are submitted in English in advance of translation to Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish to ensure that the language meets United Nations standards, and that data are represented optimally in the template.
Once an English draft has been approved for multilingual replication, every change is tracked in writing, concorded, and communicated to the language groups so that no discrepancies arise.
Concordance at the layout stage is one of the Content Services Unit’s greatest strengths, and the Sustainable Development Goals Report is one of its many beneficiaries.
As soon as the report has been laid out in all six languages, a final review is done by both departments. Only then is the document released for printing and web distribution at DESA’s annual launch event.
The Sustainable Development Goals are an international priority, and it is important to communicate their progress to the widest possible audience.
We are proud that the work of the DGACM production editors has been instrumental to that accomplishment since the inception of the Goals.
For more information, visit www.un.org/dgacm or reach out to mssfrontdesk@un.org.
