© UNESCO

'For the first time at the global level, the recently adopted United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda for 2030 acknowledges the key role of culture, creativity and cultural diversity to solving sustainable development challenges. This recognition resonates with the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, the 10th anniversary of which we celebrate in 2015.[...] The new 2030 Agenda raises high expectations, and this is the importance of this first-ever UNESCO monitoring Report, to collect, analyse and disseminate information on the many different ways in which countries across the world are integrating culture into sustainable development policies and programmes. This report comes in timely support for the implementation of the new Agenda, to ensure effectiveness and maximize impact, helping countries to evaluate goals, resolve policy questions, and devise new measures that meet people’s demands and needs.' (Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO)