In Dhaka, one table brought together questions that are usually assigned to different ministries. On 16 September 2026, a UNESCO delegation led by Susan Vize, the organization’s representative to Bangladesh, met Zahed Ur Rahman, Adviser for Information, Broadcasting and Cultural Affairs. According to UNESCO’s account published on 18 September, the conversation covered journalism, journalist safety, digital governance, responsible artificial intelligence, culture and heritage. The significance of the meeting lies less in a dramatic announcement than in how these subjects connect.
Reliable information is also cultural infrastructure
UNESCO’s report explicitly names information integrity, misinformation and disinformation, as well as media and information literacy. These terms can sound abstract. They describe familiar experiences: knowing where an image came from, distinguishing reporting from advertising, checking a claim passed around in a messaging group, or understanding why a source deserves trust. Cultural policy does not operate outside this environment. Artists, places of memory and collective stories also reach people through media and platforms.
Journalist safety is another issue UNESCO identifies. Without working conditions that allow reporters to investigate and publish, verification tools alone are not enough. The quality of public information depends on audience skills, professional practice and protection for those who establish facts. The Dhaka dialogue connects these dimensions, but the account specifies neither a new protective measure nor a reform timetable. It should therefore be read as a stage of discussion, not as an adopted policy.
Responsible AI beyond a slogan
Responsible AI governance also featured in the exchange, alongside the digital landscape and the ongoing media reform process. That proximity matters. Systems able to generate text, images or audio can help translate and distribute content, but can also make its origin harder to identify. For a newsroom, cultural institution or public service, the decisive questions become practical: who checks an automated output, how is its use disclosed, what data was used to produce it, and who is accountable for a mistake?
UNESCO’s account does not specify a new national mechanism on any of these points. Calling the meeting the launch of AI regulation would be premature. Its editorial interest lies elsewhere: technology is placed in the same frame as public trust and the circulation of creative work. Innovation is not merely a tool to deploy; it also involves decisions about responsibility, access, and how languages and cultures are represented. The next phase will show whether this dialogue becomes identifiable rules, training or projects.
Living heritage and the creative economy together
The cultural part of the meeting was equally broad. UNESCO describes potential cooperation on a comprehensive National Culture Strategy, safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, its nomination processes, the Memory of the World Programme, and Bangladesh’s creative economy. These are not projects with identical timelines. Sustaining a living practice means working with the people who carry it; documenting archives calls for different expertise; expanding creative activity requires conditions for distribution and fair payment.
Discussing them together may help avoid an artificial divide between preservation and creation. Heritage is not merely an object to display: it lives in gestures, voices, images and contemporary uses. Conversely, the creative economy cannot be reduced to a promise of growth. It depends on creators being seen, credited and paid, and on the public’s access to their work. The account provides no funding figure and announces no heritage inscription. The distinction matters: discussing a nomination is not the same as granting recognition.
What to watch next
Both sides welcomed continued engagement and closer coordination with relevant institutions. UNESCO says it aims to support Bangladesh through technical cooperation, policy dialogue and international knowledge exchange. Its 18 September report mentions no signed agreement, budget or programme with deadlines. The next evidence of progress will therefore be concrete: a published roadmap, named partners, training activities, verifiable safeguards or cultural projects in which local participants have a real role. Each of these would answer a different question. A roadmap would show priorities; a budget would show capacity; public reporting would let citizens assess results. None should be assumed simply because the subjects appeared on the meeting agenda. The people whose livelihoods depend on journalism or creative work will have the clearest view of whether any eventual initiative changes their daily conditions.
For B-EMPIRE, the central thread is straightforward: culture can no longer be considered separately from the technologies that make it visible, and media cannot be separated from the conditions of trust that help audiences find their bearings. The Dhaka meeting does not solve this three-way challenge. It does, however, pose a useful question of method: how can freedom to inform, digital responsibility and cultural transmission advance together without turning a diplomatic conversation into a victory announced too early? This cooperation should be judged by the answer, not only by the photograph of the meeting.
