Cultura y Desarrollo Sostenible

The Report of the Online Meeting of Ministers of Culture, Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cultural sector and public policy response, gathers the Ministers’ reflections on the impact of the health crisis on the cultural sector in their respective countries.

Presented on the occasion of the Forum of Ministers of Culture, this publication – produced in collaboration with subregional and regional intergovernmental organizations – provides an overview of the priorities, trends, and perspectives of cultural policies in the light of the challenges of sustainable development. 

The Culture|2030 Indicators is a framework of thematic indicators whose purpose is to measure and monitor the progress of culture’s enabling contribution to the national and local implementation of the Goals and Targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs). The framework of indicators assesses both the role of culture as a sector of activity, as well as the transversal contribution of culture across different SDGs and policy areas.

The World Conference on Cultural Policies took place in Mexico City, at the kind invitation of the Mexican Government, from 26 July to 6 August 1982. This conference at ministerial level was convened by the Director-General of Unesco in pursuance of resolution 4.01 adopted by the General Conference at its twenty-first session. The compositionof the conference, which falls into category II of Unesco-sponsored meet- ings, was determined by the Executive Board at its 113th and 114th sessions, in accordance with the provisions of Article 21, paragraph 1, of the Regulations for the General Classification of the various categories of meetings convened by UNESCO. 

UNESCO's World Conference on Cultural Policies—Mondiacult—took place in Mexico City from 26 July to 6 August 1982. It brought together ministers and other high officials concerned with their governments' policies in the cultural field.

Development divorced from its human or cultural context is growth without a soul. Economic development in its full flowering is part of a people's culture. This is not a view commonly held, a more conventional views regards culture as either a help or hindrance to economic development, leading to the call to take "cultural factors into account in development"

Culture is both the context for development as well as the missing factor in policies for development Although such interactions have long been recognized as essential, there has been no worldwide analysis in this field on which new policies could be based. The independent World Commission on Culture and Development (WCCD) was therefore established jointly by UNESCO and the United Nations in December 1992 to prepare a policy-oriented report on the interactions of culture and development.

Economic growth, the traditional objective of development policy, is concerned with increasing the output of goods and services, in the expectation that this will increase human well-being and reduce poverty. More recently there has been a shift in favour of human development, where emphasis is placed on increasing an individual’s capabilities, widening choice and expanding freedom.’ There is much discussion, even controversy, about the relationship between economic growth and human development:3 are they in opposition? do they have different policy implications? or do they come down to much the same thing in the end?

The World Commission on Culture and Development, created in 1992 under the joint auspices of UNESCO and the United Nations and presided by Javier Perez de Cuellar, presented its report, entitled Our Creative Diversity, to the General Conference of UNESCO and to the United Nations General Assembly in November 1995.