International Meeting on the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Diversity of Cultural Expressions and its Implementation Possibilities in Central and Eastern European Countries
On the 14th and 15th October 2013 the Arts and Theatre Institute (ATI) together with the National Contact Point for the UNESCO 2005 Convention at the Ministry of Culture, the Czech Republic organized a workshop on the implementation possibilities of the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity. This international meeting took place in Prague.
Objective of the workshop was to discuss implementation possibilities among Central, South-Eastern and Eastern European countries and provide input for national strategies and measures concerning the support of arts, their distribution and international cooperation.
The workshop created an opportunity to shape the future cultural development with special regard to the historical background and therefrom originated challenges in the implementation of the 2005 Convention and the possibility to exchange practical examples of achievements already made. The discussion panels approached three different points in relation to the promotion of cultural diversity: 1) support of artistic creation, 2) support of production and distribution of cultural goods and services and 3) support of cultural mobility and international cooperation.
These topics were during two days discussed by delegates from different European countries: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Moldavia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
The aim of the workshop was to discuss the different experiences with the implementation of the 2005 Convention objectives among Central, South-Eastern and Eastern European countries. The results of these discussions will be available in e-publication which will offer the summary of conclusions of this meeting and contributions from different participants.
Challenges identified in the implementation of this measure:
We observed that several participating countries had problems with the internal communication among ministries and NGOs. Not every country was able to send the representant of NGOs.
Remark to point b): The realization of the workshop costed 20 000 USD. To organize this international meeting, the Arts and Theatre Institute has obtained a grant from UNESCO’s Participation Programme.
The results of this meeting are still not definitely available but for the Czech Republic which accessed the Convention in 2010 the discusiion and experiences from more experienced countries were very helpful, thanks to presentation of good practices of the implementation of the 2005 Convention, exchanges of know-how etc.