UN Publishes the Chinese Edition of Flagship
‘Basic Facts about the United Nations’ Handbook Translated by GIIT

On September 1, 2015, the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) published the Chinese edition of the flagship UN handbook, Basic Facts about the United Nations. On the same day the United Nations Headquarters in New York made a press release in English and French and an announcement in Chinese on the issuance. Stéphane Dujarric, the Spokesman for UN Secretary- General, released this news in the Daily Press Briefing and “thanked” GIIT, “which was key in preparing the translation” for the UN. On September 2, the news was tweeted and shared by the UN on Weibo and Wechat many times, and was also set in the “In Focus” column on the UN website in Chinese.

This is the first time in nearly 30 years that the flagship UN handbook is being published in Chinese with latest contents. Before the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon travelled to Beijing, he signed his name on the newly published book and was about to give it to Chinese leaders as a present. In the book’s foreword, he wrote, “Basic Facts about the United Nations shows how the Organization is laying the foundations for a better future for people everywhere. I know of no better introduction to our work than this reliable handbook.

On April 18, 2014, Jiang Hua, Acting Director of the News and Media Division at the United Nations, and Chen Fang, Chief of Partnerships Unit of the DPI, together visited GIIT and signed a cooperation agreement with it, ushering the official beginning of the translation work of Basic Facts about the United Nations, which had been prepared since early 2014. The two officials were impressed by GIIT’s capabilities in professional translation and project management. They spoke highly of GIIT’s teaching method of incorporating practical training into in-class teaching throughout the graduate program.

Zheng Leibo, head of UN Website in Chinese, kicked off and led the cooperation between this sector and GIIT. He said that his team was responsible for proofreading nearly 500,000 words per year as well as their publishing on websites and social media. The publication of the paper edition of Basic Facts about the United Nations is of great value.

GIIT specially organized a team for this project, including project managers who were in charge of the project coordination and liaisons who were responsible for communicating with the News and Media Division about any problem during the translation. The first draft was completed by first-year and second-year graduate students (enrolled in 2014 and 2013) in the English-Chinese Translation Program, and then was proofread by graduates from the class of 2014. After that, it was finalized by experienced translators led by teachers of the English-Chinese Translation Program. The team spent 9 months in total translating the 123,968-word book. The final version was recognized and praised by the UN.