The
International Congress "Culture: Key to Sustainable Development" was
held in Hangzhou (China) from 15 May to 17 May 2013. This was the first International
Congress specifically focusing on the linkages between culture and sustainable
development organized by UNESCO since the Stockholm Conference in 1998. As
such, the Congress provided the very first global forum to discuss the role of
culture in sustainable development in view of the post-2015 development
framework, with participation of the global community and the major
international stakeholders.
While
culture was absent from the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), integrating the
cultural dimension into actions and goals in achieving sustainable development
is an approach that is making its way on the international level. The Outcome
document of MDG Summit, “Keeping the promise: united to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals” (2010), emphasized the importance of culture for development
and its contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Furthermore, the trend toward integrating culture into UN development policies
is particularly visible at the level of the United Nations Development
Assistance Framework (UNDAF). Indeed, by January 2012, culture was included in
70% of UNDAF work plans worldwide. These figures are the result of an
increasingly positive trend since the late 1990s, when only about 30% of UNDAFs
included cultural entries.
