EXTRAIT DE CULTURE
social ties. To bring culture closer to its citizens during the lockdown period, Rome, a UNESCO Creative City of Film, launched the project #Cinemadacasa, projecting well known film sequences and images on building facades throughout the city. These hybrid and innovative modalities must remain profitable in order to guarantee the livelihoods of culture professionals and to strengthen the creative economy. HOW CAN CULTURE HYBRIDISATION BE A POWERFUL TOOL FOR ACHIEVING SOCIAL UNITY? WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT TO TEACH ETHICS AND VALUES? AND WHAT KIND OF ETHICSAND VALUES? Our culture fosters our responses to our environment, our interactions with nature, our world views and our history, among other aspects. No culture is static or impervious to others. This is what constitutes both our common humanity and our cultural diversity. Recognising and respecting our cultural diversity is a prerequisite for social cohesion. This is why UNESCO, along with its Member States, strives to give particular attention to those cultural practices and expressions that help communities to transcend and address differences notably of gender, belief, ethnicity, and locality. Culture contributes to building peaceful, inclusive societies, by fostering the integration of indigenous peoples, migrants, immigrants and refugees, people of different ages and genders, persons with disabilities and members of marginalised groups. Very often, it is in this mutual respect and understanding that solutions must be found in order to foster unity and contribute to peaceful conflict resolution. Under the theme of Community centred urban development: a paradigm of inclusive growth, the UNESCO celebration of the World Cities Day 2020 on 30 October next will further highlight communities’ central role in building sustainable societies across different development dimensions, especially in the urban context where different peoples and cultures converge and interact. By safeguarding and promoting cultural expressions and heritage from all over the world, UNESCO seeks to protect and foster this cultural diversity, especially among the youngest. UNESCO’s standard-setting instruments, including the Culture Conventions and Recommendations, support countries in fulfilling this priority, in line with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and Targets, such as ‘promoting global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity’ (4.7) and ‘safeguarding the world's cultural and natural heritage’ (11.4). WHAT IS THE BEST MODEL FOR REPRESENTING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT THAT INCLUDES ECONOMY, ENVIRONMENT, SOCIAL
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AND CULTURE AS ITS DIMENSIONS? Over the last decade, UNESCO’s advocacy for a culture-based approach to sustainable development has resulted in several United Nations General Assembly Resolutions that acknowledge the role of culture as an enabler of sustainable development. This process culminated in the integration of culture in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in 2015 by the 193 United Nations Member States. Culture has since been recognised by the international community as a transformative resource for more sustainable models, including through the promotion of a sustainable tourism that is considerate of local cultures, values and products, the protection and safeguarding of the world’s cultural and natural heritage, and support for productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation. UNESCO’s commitment to ensuring that the transformative power of culture in enabling sustainable development, is constantly renewed, most recently with the development of the Thematic Indicators for Culture in the 2030 Agenda (Culture|2030 Indicators). In addition, several UNESCO standard-setting instruments in the field of culture such as the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions integrate culture and sustainable development as part of the rights and obligations of State Parties. These instruments highlight the role of culture, creativity and artistic innovation for development and, in so doing, they advance a human-centred approach that effectively yields sustainable, inclusive and equitable outcomes. This transversal approachaddresses development as a process that encompasses the enlargement of humanopportunities and freedoms, beyond the benefits of economic growth. Indeed, sustainable development must be intrinsically comprehensive, interlinking all aspects of our society, with culture as an integral part of its backbone. Composed of 8 UNESCO city networks and programmes from all of the Organisation’s fields of expertise, the UNESCO Cities Platform embodies UNESCO’s holistic vision on sustainable development with, which harnesses the transversal role of culture across the economic, social and environmental dimensions. WHAT ARE YOUR PREDICTIONS FOLLOWING THE PANDEMIC? Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments have already implemented support schemes for the culture sector, which range from “direct support” by providing emergency relief to those whose livelihoods have been directly impacted, to “indirect support” including tax exemptions, tax