The platform was launched in May 2004 as a concrete follow-up to UNESCO’s Declaration on Cultural Diversity and its Plan of Action, which called for the establishment of mechanisms to facilitate the circulation and exchange of media content as a way of promoting cultural diversity.

The community has grown in the last three years and gathers today 3000 audiovisual professionals (producers, broadcasters, festival organizers, distributors, cultural institutions, etc), hosts 135 catalogues with 500 outstanding productions from 85 countries and has facilitated hundreds of exchanges, broadcasts, events and professional contacts.

UNESCO’s audiovisual e-platform offers an alternative communication channel where challenging and creative productions can be found, fully screened and acquired on-line. The platform consists of recently directed television productions, including documentaries, short fiction films, animation, children’s programmes and TV-magazines, which are a genuine expression of different cultures in the world.

Recently, the e-platform has established a partnership with the United Nations Department of Public Information (UNDPI) and is now able to offer a catalogue with the latest productions of the UN system, free of rights. Other partnerships, hosting interesting catalogues on the E-platform, include:

• Conseil international des radios-télévisions d'expression française (CIRTEF), which has the most voluminous catalogue with several series of African documentaries (Habitat traditionnel, Affaires de Gout, etc.),
  
• Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) (India),
  
• Prix Jeunesse International,
  
• Itau Cultural (Brazil),
  
• Fundación Kine (Argentina),
  
• Asian-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), and
  
• Universidad de Guadalajara (Mexico).