On 20 April 2016, in Belgrade, the Ministry of Culture and Media of Serbia will host the regional meeting on “The implementation of Culture for Development Indicators in South East-Europe: results, lessons learnt, recommendations". The event is organized in cooperation with the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe, Venice (Italy). Besides taking stock of the progress made in the implementation process in the concerned countries, the meeting will serve to present and assess challenges encountered, threats and opportunities for improvement as well as a monitoring framework based on the Implementation Toolkit provided by UNESCO.

During its pilot implementation phase at global level from 2011 to 2014, the CDIS involved over 24 national level workshops to discuss and validate results, bringing together a large number of stakeholders from ministries, national statistics institutes, academics, development agencies and civil society. The pilot phase included Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Following that experience, since 2015, the UNESCO Regional Bureau is supporting to the implementation of the CDIS in other countries in South-East Europe, starting with Montenegro, Croatia, Republic of Moldova, Serbia, and Albania.

• The CDIS process in Montenegro started in February 2015. Following data collection and the construction of indicators, a final workshop took place on 15 April 2015 to present the preliminary results. The analysis and validation of the indicators and the finalization of the report are completed, and the final presentation is to take place in the course of May 2016.
• The country team in Croatia began data collection and the construction of indicators in late April 2015. The validation of indicators is ongoing. A final workshop to present Croatia’s results is planned for the summer of 2016.
• The implementation of the CDIS methodology in the Republic of Moldova was officially launched on 8 June 2015 in Chisinau. The construction of the CDIS indicators is well under way.
•  CDIS activities were launched more recently in Serbia (June 2015) and Albania (December 2015), with works in progress.

In 2016, other countries of the region are expected to implement the CDIS. Thanks to these joint efforts, South-East Europe is the sub-region at global level in which the implementation of the CDIS methodology is most advanced, providing an unprecedented opportunity to compare data, results, and sectoral policy at a sub-regional and European level.

Under the coordination of the UNESCO Regional Bureau, the meeting in Belgrade will allow to share as well as confront experiences and practices with partial results in the 7 key CDIS policy dimensions: Economy; Education; Governance; Social participation; Gender equality; Communication; and Heritage. Recommendations for future action at policy level will be provided on the basis of the outputs collected so far. The meeting will also set the stage for a reinforcement of the international cooperation on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions, at sub-regional level and vis-à-vis the broader European framework.

Officials will participate in representation of the ministries of culture and relevant authorities of the Member States of the Council of Ministers of Culture of South-East Europe - Enhancing Culture for Sustainable Development (CoMoCoSEE), namely: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey. International experts and UNESCO representatives will also take part in the meeting.

The organization of the meeting is made possible thanks to the annual contribution of Italy to the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe.

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The UNESCO Culture for Development Indicators (CDIS) aim to highlight how culture contributes to development at a national level, fostering economic growth and helping individuals and communities to expand their life choices and adapt to change. They contribute to the implementation of Article 13 (Integration of Culture in Sustainable Development) of the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

CDIS provide evidence-based justification for the inclusion of culture in development strategies and plans. Their implementation allows to gather new data for informed policies and monitoring systems for culture; to build capacities in data collection and analysis on culture and development; to promote awareness of culture’s role in sustainable development through participative inter-institutional dialogue; and, to foster a comparable understanding across the region and at an international level.

Link : http://en.unesco.org/creativity/development-indicators