The United Nations recognizes the role of culture for development

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2011-01-26

On 20 December 2010, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on culture and development, which emphasizes the important contribution of culture for sustainable development and for the achievement of national and international development objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

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Brochure Culture and Development

This represents a major breakthrough at the international level in so far as there is no explicit mention of culture in the MDGs. This new resolution will encourage stakeholders to more fully integrate the cultural dimension into development processes thereby ensuring their sustainability.

This resolution comes in the wake of the United Nations MDG Summit, which took place in September 2010. The outcome document adopted by the Summit explicitly recognizes the links between culture and development by insisting on the importance of culture as a factor of development and encourages international cooperation in the cultural field for the achievement of development goals. As a side event of the Summit, UNESCO organized, in collaboration with the African Union and the European Commission, a High Level Round Table for the purpose of raising awareness of the international community on this issue. Among the participants in the round table were the Heads of State of Senegal and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Source: UNESCO