‘We are what we share’: EU Delegation in Geneva wins this year’s Geneva Engage Award

18.02.2021

Every year, the Geneva Internet Platform recognises International Geneva actors in their social media outreach and online engagement with the Engage Awards. The EU Delegation in Geneva is delighted to receive the award in the category ‘Permanent Representations’ – a great recognition of its communication efforts and increased social media outreach since the start of the pandemic.

 

‘We are honoured and proud to receive this year’s award. It’s a fantastic recognition of the efforts we put into our communication work’, said Walter Stevens, Head of the EU Delegation at the virtual Award ceremony. ‘Our communication team is actually a very small team, but we try to work with the means and resources we have and do the best we can, while we are also encouraged and inspired by the social media work of other Missions and colleagues in Geneva.’

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‘We have always invested quite a lot of our communication efforts into social media, but of course this has been even further increased since the pandemic started’, he explained. ‘We wanted to look at the pandemic as an opportunity to further improve our social media work.’    

For example, the EU Communication Team in Geneva finally started the Delegation’s Instagram account (@eu_ungeneva), trying to address a new audience, especially young people, and tried out different formats such as video blogs with the Ambassador, or the #MeetTheEUTeam and #FromGenevaToTheWorld series.  

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In view of the challenge of communicating on often rather technical issues, the EU Ambassador Stevens underlined: ‘Even on an institutional account we need to show that we are human.

Not only the work of the EU Team in Geneva has been recognized at the Award Ceremony, but also the communication efforts of the Permanent Mission of France, who achieved the third place in the ranking of the Geneva Engage Awards. Overall, this year's success in the Geneva Engage ranking also reflects the great cooperation between Geneva-based EU Missions who are joining their communication forces as Team Europe. 

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About the Award

Geneva Engage is an initiative of the Geneva Internet Platform, supported by the Republic and State of Geneva, and DiploFoundation. The Geneva Engage Awards are based on an analysis of innovative and effective use of social media, carried out by DiploFoundation’s Data Team. Geneva Engage examines links between International Geneva and communities from around the world that are affected by the policies discussed and negotiated in Geneva in areas such as development, human rights, digital and similar issues.