RE | SHAPING CULTURAL POLICIES – A Decade Promoting the Diversity of Cultural Expressions for Development
UNESCO – 2015 [2005 Convention Global Report]
ISBN 978-92-3-100136-9 :: 238 pages
Pdf: Download the Report
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Foreword
For the first time at the global level, the recently adopted United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda for 2030 acknowledges the key role of culture, creativity and cultural diversity to solving sustainable development challenges. This recognition resonates with the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, the 10th anniversary of which we celebrate in 2015.
Over the last decade, this landmark Convention – now ratified by 140 Parties – has changed the overall approach on culture and cultural goods and services. It recognized the sovereign right of governments to introduce policies to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions. It highlighted the dual nature of cultural activities, goods and services: they have both an economic and a cultural dimension – providing jobs and revenues, driving innovation and sustainable economic growth, and at the same time conveying identities and values, fostering social inclusion and sense of belonging. Today, we can witness the multiple advantages of this combination, as a force for both social and economic sustainability, as a driver to promote human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The new 2030 Agenda raises high expectations, and this is the importance of this first-ever UNESCO monitoring Report, to collect, analyse and disseminate information on the many different ways in which countries across the world are integrating culture into sustainable development policies and programmes.
This report comes in timely support for the implementation of the new Agenda, to ensure effectiveness and maximize impact, helping countries to evaluate goals, resolve policy questions, and devise new measures that meet people’s demands and needs. It provides in-depth analysis of current trends, advances and challenges faced by all relevant policy actors — with examples of innovative policies and measures that address contemporary issues including:
transnational mobility, artistic freedom, access to international marketplaces, the digital environment.
It also provides – for the first time – an integrated monitoring framework in the field of culture with proposed indicators of change and progress…
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Press Release
First Global Report – Evaluating the Impact of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions
Paris, 16 December – The rise of Internet giants, the explosion of social networks, the digital revolution – all profoundly changing the methods of production and dissemination of cultural goods such as music, film and books. Since the adoption of the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, the world’s cultural landscape has changed considerably. Presented at UNESCO on 16 December, the Report Re|Shaping Cultural Policies explores these changes and the policy impact of the Convention.
Adopted by UNESCO in 2005, the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions came into force in 2007. It now has 141 signatory States and the European Union.
Industrialized nations hold the biggest stake in exports
Encouraging an equal flow of cultural goods and services from the developing world is a key guiding principle of the Convention. However, ten years after the adoption of the Convention, the sector remains largely dominated by industrialized countries.
Out of the $212.8 billion in global exports of cultural goods, 46.7% is from developing nations, this compared to 25.6% in 2004. However, this overall picture is distorted by cultural exports mainly from China and India, as these two countries are increasingly competing with developed nations. Without them, the market share of the developing countries for world exports of cultural goods increased by merely 5% between 2004 and 2013.
Developed countries are increasingly importing music and audio-visual goods from developing countries. The share of these imported goods in developed countries represented 39.6% in 2013. Books and publishing form the second largest group, with 32.3% of the share of imports from developing countries.
Digital revolution
The expansion of social networks and user-produced content, the growing use of connected multimedia devices, and the explosion in the quantity of data available have led to the emergence of new actors and new rationales. This revolution is by no means confined to industrialized countries, many regions in the global south have made considerable progress, particularly in the field of connectivity. In Africa, the penetration rate for mobile telephony increased threefold between 2007 and 2012.
Technology also provides an opportunity for new voices to make themselves heard in public service media. We are seeing an emergence of new actors, including citizen journalists and amateur film producers, who are redefining the boundaries of journalism. Likewise, the enthusiasm of young people for film creation has been greater. The production of fiction film in developing countries rose significantly between 2005 and 2010, up from 3% in 2005 to 24% in 2013, while the production of documentaries rose from 1% to 25% over the same period.
But these changes are occurring in part to the detriment of linguistic diversity. Indeed, 80% of linguistic content available on the internet is in English, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Arabic, French, Russian, and Korean. Another challenge identified by the Report: the rise of Internet giants may undermine access to a diversity of cultural choices, particularly in language choice. “Although the platforms provide a wide range of cultural offerings, the fact that they control not only sales but also the communication and algorithms of recommendations raises the problem of discoverability,” the Report emphasizes…
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