#culture2015goal: Join your colleagues in calling for urgent recognition of culture’s role in development
Paris, May 1, 2014 - The International Music Council has partnered with other key international networks to launch a Declaration on the Inclusion of Culture in the Sustainable Development Goals and is calling on the international community to support the campaign: The future we want includes culture.
Together with the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA); Agenda 21 for culture – UCLG’s Committee on Culture, the International Federation of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity (IFCCD), Culture Action Europe, Arterial Network and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), IMC has today launched a campaign calling on governments and policy makers defining the post-2015 UN Development Agenda to ensure that targets and indicators on culture be included as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Details are provided in the Declaration on the Inclusion of Culture in the Sustainable Development Goals.
To support this campaign please urgently:
- Visit and sign this Declaration either as an organisation or as an individual
- Send this Declaration, or your own message, to your country’s representative at the United Nations (this will probably be via the Minister or Department for Foreign Affairs). See the list of Permanent Delegates here
- Circulate this Declaration to your networks and spread the word. The future we want includes culture. #culture2015goal
Global expenditure on development over the next 15 years will be defined by the final goal document to be agreed by UN Member States in coming months. If culture is not mentioned, it will be extremely difficult for countries to elaborate policies and provide funds for projects that rely on culture’s role as as a driver and enabler of sustainable development.
‘Culture’ was completely absent from the Millennium Development Goals document. Don’t let this happen again.
Why is this urgent?
Over the past 12 months, the UN’s Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has held 10 working sessions. On 23 April 2014, the OWG’s co-chairs released the latest draft list of goals that contains 15 ‘focus areas’ with targets and indicators to be discussed at the OWG 11th session on 5-9 May.
Culture is again almost absent. The OWG’s draft of the SDGs will be finalized in July.
Finally, on 5 May 2014 the UN General Assembly will hold a Special Thematic Debate on ‘Culture and Sustainable Development in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.’ The draft programme shows which countries’ representatives are speaking in the debate.
Please act now and help raise awareness of the UN’s Member States of culture’s vital contribution to sustainable development.