Culture, Heritage, and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

All of this has strengthened the understanding that heritage is not just a list of marvelous sites—it is a vision for peace and mutual respect, carved in stone and cultural landscapes, with the power to change the minds of women and men, and to shape a different future for all. Heritage preservation shows us that cultures have always influenced each other, that they are in fact irresistibly intertwined. The result is a formidable and unprecedented diversity.

Our notion of culture has broadened significantly over the decades. The 2001 UNESCO “Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity,” signed by every one of its member states, compellingly states that “cultural diversity widens the range of options open to everyone; it is one of the roots of development, understood not simply in terms of economic growth, but also as a means to achieve a more satisfactory intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual existence.”⁵¹

The current era of globalization, with its unprecedented acceleration and intensification in global flows of ideas and information, is having a homogenizing influence on local culture. While this phenomenon promotes the integration of societies and has provided millions of people with new opportunities, it may also bring with it a loss of uniqueness of local culture, which in turn can lead to loss of identity, exclusion, and even conflict. Because of this, balancing the benefits of integrating into a globalized world against protecting the uniqueness of local culture requires a careful approach. Placing culture at the heart of development policies does not mean to confine and fix it in a conservative way. On the contrary, it invites us to invest in the potential of local resources, knowledge, skills, and materials to foster creativity and sustainable progress. Recognition and respect for the diversity of cultures also creates the conditions for mutual understanding, dialogue, and peace.

As UNESCO director-general I was an ardent proponent of integrating culture as a driver of social cohesion and sustainable development during the elaboration of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which elaborated seventeen “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs). It was a unique opportunity for the first time to recognize culture as bringing social inclusion and respect for human dignity, but also for creating economic growth and decent jobs, contributing to gender equality, fighting climate change, and creating peaceful and inclusive societies.

With all this in mind, the years in the run-up to September 2015, when the UN General Assembly was supposed to adopt the 2030 Agenda, were indeed busy ones. We had to mobilize all our partners and networks to convince member states that culture matters, in all its diverse forms and expressions. Our many allies on this journey included the expert community, museums, private foundations, cities, associations of artists and theater workers, and the film and music industries, among others.

We also partnered with the powerful International Confederation of Societies of Performers and Composers (CISAC) for the December 2015 launch of a report, “Cultural Times: The First Global Map of Cultural and Creative Industries,” prepared by Ernst & Young.⁵² CISAC has 232 member societies in 121 countries, representing more than four million creators from all geographical areas and all artistic repertoires—music, audiovisual, drama, literature, and visual arts. The report analyzed the economic weight of eleven sectors—advertising, architecture, books, gaming, music, movies, newspapers/magazines, performing arts, radio, TV, and visual arts—revealing the considerable economic and social contribution of the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) to the world economy. According to the report, in 2013 these sectors together generated US$2,250 billion in revenues, representing 3 percent of world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 29.5 million jobs or 1 percent of the world’s active population. Interestingly enough, these figures surpassed those for telecom services worldwide, at $1,570 billion in revenues, and the number of combined jobs in the automotive industry in Japan, Europe, and the United States, at 25 million.

Most importantly, in order to succeed, we had to work with member states both at UNESCO’s headquarters and in New York, where the UN General Assembly’s members were engaged in a complex process of drafting new, ambitious, universal, and comprehensive development goals for humanity for the next fifteen years, the 2030 Agenda.

Our advocacy brought about three successive General Assembly resolutions, adopted in 2010, 2011, and 2013, recognizing the role of culture as an enabler and driver of sustainable development. We encouraged the creation of an active and committed Group of Friends of Culture and Development at the UN in New York, composed of influential countries from all regions. The group not only met regularly, but pushed strongly so that culture did not slip between the cracks of the complex negotiating process on the new global agenda.

There were many important initiatives, such as the “Creative Economy Report” of 2013, and the world conference in Hanzhow, China, the same year with its declaration of “Culture: Key to Sustainable Development.” This was followed in 2014 by the World Forum in Florence, Italy, and its adoption of the Florence Declaration on “Culture, Creativity and Sustainable Development: Research, Innovation.”

At the time we were working on strengthening the normative framework in the area of culture and on the elaboration and submission of new instruments. This is how a new UNESCO document was adopted on November 19, 2011, by the thirty-sixth General Conference: “Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape.”⁵³ Recognizing the “dynamic nature of living cities,” it states in article 11: “The historic urban landscape approach is aimed at preserving the quality of the human environment, enhancing the productive and sustainable use of urban spaces, while recognizing their dynamic character, and promoting social and functional diversity. It integrates the goals of urban heritage conservation and those of social and economic development. It is rooted in a balanced and sustainable relationship between the urban and natural environment, between the needs of present and future generations and the legacy from the past.”

The adoption of the 2011 recommendation played an important role in our advocacy for the inclusion of culture in the 2030 Agenda. It was not by chance that the explicit text for protection of heritage is included in Goal 11 on Sustainable Cities: “to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage” in order to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.” Later, at the thirty-seventh UNESCO General Conference in 2013, member states also adopted an important resolution “highlighting the role of cultural and creative industries in poverty alleviation through job creation and income generation,” with a view to integrating culture in the 2030 Agenda.

Later, in November 2015, the thirty-eighth session of the General Conference adopted the “Recommendation Concerning the Protection and Promotion of Museums and Collections, Their Diversity and Their Role in Society,”⁵⁴ establishing another building block in the normative field of culture. As a result, the SDGs, adopted within the 2030 Agenda by the UN in September 2015, included culture and heritage protection for the first time—as an end in itself, but also as a means to achieving many of the other Sustainable Development Goals, such as safe and sustainable cities, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, environmental protection, promoting gender equality, and peaceful and inclusive societies.

This is a great achievement, as I have always insisted that if the purpose of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is an agenda of the people, by the people, and for the people, then culture and heritage should play a very central role. The more so considering that the SDGs enshrine a conceptual shift in thinking about development beyond economic growth, envisioning a desirable future that is equitable, inclusive, peaceful, and environmentally sustainable.

Last but not least, culture and heritage play a positive role in the critical debate about living together in a globalized and connected world, about reconciling different cultures through an intercultural dialogue and the use of cultural diversity as a force for creativity and peace, and not for destruction, hatred, and conflict. World heritage plays a vital role in this: it is an open book of diversity and knowledge about the “other” that has to be taught in schools and embraced by education systems globally. Heritage gives confidence and helps reconcile individuals with a globalizing world. Protecting cultural heritage of “outstanding universal value”—an idea that did not exist some fifty years ago—is an extraordinary way of getting to know each other, of respecting one another’s cultures, and of living together.