Every day around the world journalists risk their lives to report the news for us. To defend media freedom, Jeremy Hunt, (at the time, UK Foreign Secretary) and Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland announced the creation of a Global Media Defence Fund, which will support, train and provide legal support for journalists in the most dangerous parts of the world.

Three Mongolian media professionals visited London to attend the Global Conference for Media Freedom  as part of larger efforts to defend media freedom. The forum was held on 11-12 July. The Mongolian delegates provided their thoughts on the conference on their social media channels, and recorded a video for the British Embassy Ulaanbaatar’s social channels to promote media freedom in Mongolia.

The two-day conference received over 1,500 participants from across the world: world leaders, journalists, civil society, and academics discussed the issues of violence and harassment against the free press. The main output of the discussions was a Global Pledge on Media Freedom, signed at the conference by representatives of governments from around the world.

The UK committed £3 million to the new fund. Separately, the UK has contributed £15 million to the Protecting Media Freedom programme, a Department for International Development funded-initiative that seeks to tackle the root causes of the global crisis in independent media.