The register is part of a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) programme to support and raise awareness of archives.
The Memory of the World Programme serves as UNESCO's flagship activity to promote and protect archives, libraries and museum collections worldwide so that they can be consulted by later generations.
The Day was established in 2007 by UNESCO in cooperation with the Co-ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA) and other partners.