Culture for Sustainable Development

The integration of culture in development processes, strategies and policies at the national level is already well underway across the broad public policy spectrum, from reducing poverty through jobs, skills and employment in the cultural sector, to strengthening quality education for all and social justice, to providing context-relevant responses to foster environmental sustainability. UNESCO is engaged in providing a comprehensive support to Member States for the design, adaptation and implementation of their public policies by developing mechanisms and tools to document and measure the impact of culture on sustainable development from an integrated and comprehensive perspective. Culture should not be considered as a policy domain in isolation, but rather as a cross-cutting dimension that may foster a paradigm shift to renew policymaking towards an inclusive, people-centered and context-relevant approach.

Inter-Agency Platform on Culture for Sustainable Development (IPCSD)
UNESCO Thematic Indicators for Culture in the 2030 Agenda

Measuring and monitoring the progress of culture’s enabling contribution to the 2030 Agenda.

Culture under India's G20 Presidency

India's G20 Presidency aims to nurture, celebrate, and incorporate the cultural diversity of the member states while striving towards achieving holistic living and buildingapro-planet society.

The time has come to mobilize the international community once again for culture. And to convey this message altogether: Culture is a global public good. It is a fundamental element of the dignity of every person.

UNESCO Director-General
Audrey AzoulayUNESCO Director-General

Timeline | Culture for Sustainable Development

Culture and Education

UNESCO works to engage its interdisciplinary mandate in culture and education as part of a renewed vision of education grounded in the respect for cultural diversity and human rights. In an increasingly diverse, interdependent and volatile world, what counts as high quality education has evolved. Having the breadth of skills to understand, adapt and thrive in the face of changing social, economic and technological demands is paramount. Creativity, innovation, critical-thinking, resilience and empathy – this skillset is vital to harness the promises and mitigate challenges today and in the future. Working at the nexus of culture and education, UNESCO mobilizes its expertise and resources to support its Member States and a broad range of stakeholders in policy development and cross-cutting actions. From heritage to the cultural and creative industries, UNESCO strives to integrate culture in a wide range of education contexts and approaches to better equip learners of all ages with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to fulfill their potential, face future challenges, and forge more equitable and peaceful futures for all.

CLT-ED_1_0

UNESCO - MONDIACULT 2022

The UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development – MONDIACULT 2022 was convened by UNESCO forty years after the first MONDIACULT World Conference on Cultural Policies held in Mexico City (Mexico) in 1982, and 24 years after the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies for Development held in Stockholm (Sweden) in 1998. The UNESCO-MONDIACULT 2022 World Conference was hosted from 28 to 30 September 2022 by the Government of Mexico.

Motifs MONDIACULT

In numbers

50 million
jobs are created by CCIs worldwide

and more young people 15-29 are employed in the sector than in any other economic activity

48%
of workers

of the cultural and creative sectors are women

5 million
professionals

are employed by the African Film and Audiovisual Industries

80%
of the world’s global biodiversity

is protected under the stewardship of Indigenous peoples

10 million km2
of cultural and natural sites

around the world are protected by UNESCO’s designated sites

90%
of countries

feature culture as a major priority in their tourism policy

US$2.7 billion
incomes were made in 2020 from

royalties and digital channels, making up a quarter of all revenue for the sector

A rise by 34%
was recorded in

Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service subscriptions in 2020

Culture in times of COVID-19: resilience, recovery and revival
UNESCO
Department of Culture and Tourism
2022
UNESCO
0000381524
Courier issue: Culture, a global public good
UNESCO
juillet-septembre 2022
UNESCO
0000382082
Re|shaping policies for creativity: addressing culture as a global public good
UNESCO
2022
Publication supported by Sweden
0000380474