Opening up cultural governance through civil society participation

Partnering with civil society is central to achieving the objectives of this Convention. The fourth chapter examines the operating environment of civil society organizations (CSOs) in the cultural and creative sectors to assess and highlight civil society’s impact in building participatory cultural governance. Participation in cultural policy-making and monitoring, understood as a spectrum, happens mainly through a diversity of dialogue mechanisms, allowing public authorities to inform and consult CSOs. However, co-creation processes involving CSOs in decision-making remain rare, which may be symptomatic of a legislative and regulatory environment that CSOs perceive as insufficiently enabling. Therefore, the implementation of open government practices in the cultural and creative sectors, rooted in the Convention’s principles of transparency, participation and information-sharing, has the potential to advance public and civic innovations for diverse cultural expressions to thrive. In order for cross-sectoral and cross-level collaborations to flourish, persistently wide funding imbalances need to be addressed, along with a growing need for specialized training, especially to adapt to emerging digital practices in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.