About Mr. Wijayananda Jayaweera

Mr. Jayaweera joined UNESCO in 1994 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris as a Programme Specialists dealing with Media Development in Asia and he Pacific.

In 1999 he was designated as the Regional Communication Adviser for Asia and UNESCO representative to Malaysia. In this capacity he was stationed as the Head of UNESCO office in Kuala Lumpur and implemented a number of media development programmes in the developing countries of Asia. Mr. Jayaweera represented UNESCO in major international conferences and advisory missions.

Between 2001 and 2003 he was assigned to UNESCO New Delhi office and continued to function as the Senior Regional Adviser for Communication and Information for Asia.
In 2003, the Director-General of UNESCO appointed him as the Director of UNESCO's Communication Development Division and UNESCO's International Programme for the Development of Communication at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.

Before joining UNESCO, Mr. Jayaweera has worked in Bhutan as the Adviser on training and broadcasting policy development in Bhutan under UNESCO/DANIDA project. From 1987 to 1991, he worked with the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development as a Training Director on courses relating to training methodology and community radio conducted in Iran, Malaysia and the Papua New Guinea.

Mr Jayaweera began his professional career in 1969 as a broadcasting journalist with the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Cooperation and successively held the positions of programme producer, broadcasting manager, news editor, station manager and controller of the regional broadcasting stations.

Born in 1949, Mr Jayaweera holds an M.A. with merits in Mass Communication from the University of Leicester (UK), a Diploma in Journalism from the University of Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Applied Development Communication awarded by the International Training Institute, Sydney (Australia).