On this 23 June 2021, UNESCO releases a Call to Action to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape.

The HUL Anniversary Event not only marks the start of the 2021 celebration but serves as a catalyst for greater adoptions of the HUL approach. Serving as a platform to share lessons learned from COVID-19 and to resume discussions on the future of urban management, topics such as public space, renovations, tourism, infrastructure and livelihoods will be explored. The Recommendation will provide an overall framework, while local needs and resources determine the implementation form.

UNESCO invites all cities and towns to join the Call for Action to raise awareness about the Recommendation and to accelerate inclusive urban and heritage management through HUL.

Join the Call to Action!

More information: http://whc.unesco.org/en/events/1596

The world cannot afford divergent ‘sustainable development’ and ‘climate action’ agendas but rather these two must be fully integrated. In line with Culture 21 Actions (which includes a full Commitment devoted to “cultural factors as accelerators of environmental responsibility”), we are promoting a report on “The Role of Culture in Climate Resilient Development”.

The report “Culture in Climate Resilient Development” is an attempt to document the initiatives of cities and local or regional governments from all continents on cultural policies, sustainable cities and climate resilient development. It includes a diverse pack of case studies from all across the world and addressing the whole set of the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This document was open for contributions until July 2021.

This report has been commissioned by the UCLG Culture Committee in collaboration with the Climate Heritage Network (Working Group 5). It has been jointly coordinated by Andrew Potts (Climate Heritage Network - CHN) and the Secretariat of the Committee on Culture of UCLG.

The report was presented as a draft on 9 September 2021 at the UCLG Culture Summit held in Izmir and Online, at the workshop session “Culture and the Climate Emergency. Local Experiences towards COP26”. The final version was published on 5 November 2021.

No Culture No Future  | #Culture2030goal Campaign launches its strategy document

If you believe that there is no future without culture and that the cultural ecosystems should be integrated in both short-term recovery and long-term development strategies, support the #Culture2030goal campaign. With the launch today of its strategy document the group (where UCLG and its Committee on Culture is a member} takes this opportunity to extend invitation to interested stakeholders to join the campaign and support its actions.

The #Culture2030goal campaign calls for the recognition of culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development and advocates for mainstreaming culture across the global development agenda. The campaign also aims to include culture as a distinct goal in the post 2030 development framework.

It is formed by several international cultural networks united to advocate for the role of culture in sustainable development. It is the continuation of the #Culture2015goal Campaign, created in 2013 to call for culture to be included in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (and the SDGs) that was adopted in September 2015.

Over the past two years, the Campaign has gained important momentum. A study on the place of culture in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, published in September 2019, highlighted good practices around the world. However, it also underlined that much needs to be done to realise the potential of culture as a pillar of sustainable development. In the context of the UN’s Decade of Action, the study underlined that culture needs to be recognised more broadly as a crucial development accelerator in order to realise its potential.

Published more recently, the Campaign’s #CultureCOVID19 Statement entitled ‘Ensuring culture fulfills its potential in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic’ not only highlighted the need to support culture during the pandemic, but also demonstrated how culture could both promote wellbeing in the immediate term, and a stronger, fairer recovery in the longer term. This received noteworthy attention from various organisations, including UNESCO and the WHO, culminating in the excellent result of an endorsement by the President of the UN General Assembly.

You can support the #Culture2030goal campaign by joining  as ‘Supporters’, here you can learn more how you can do it. Cultural networks with significant international reach and a leadership role in their field can join the Campaign’s small and dedicated steering group, find out more.

The #Culture2030goal campaign strategy document is available in English, French and Spanish.

Check more about the campaign on its website and follow #Culture2030goal on Twitter for more updates.

On last 28 May 2021 from 15h00-16h30 CEST, the Committee on Culture of UCLG together with the City of Rome and in collaboration with Azienda Speciale Palaexpo organised the event "The Rome Charter an informal and multi-voiced conversation one year after" with the aim of debating the place of cultural rights in short-term, mid-term and long-term development and post-crisis recovery strategies.

Check out here the programme of the event. 

In the context of our activities as a member of the Culture At Work Africa initiative consortium, we are happy to announce the release  of the final publication "Culture At Work Africa: the Public Value of Intercultural Dialogue for Social Cohesion in Urban Africa".

The publication addresses the lack of documents or reports that illustrate in practice, at work, how culture changes our societies in an empowering way. It explains the reality of 15 African countries and provides details about 33 projects and programmes co-funded in the context of the Culture At Work Africa initiative; from the frames and narratives to the final outcomes and outputs, from the successes to the difficulties experienced. All the projects described in the report can be understood – should be understood – as learning experiences. Beyond this, the publication aims at providing an overall conceptual analysis of the main thematic issues, challenges and opportunities addressed by the sub grantees. 

It also provides recommendations for subsequent activities at local, national, regional or African and EU level. Along with providing valuable lessons in addressing local issues and challenges, this publication also aims at documenting, promoting and providing international visibility on the 33 projects and programmes co-funded in the context of the initiative. With this publication, we aim at providing both a printed and digitalised record of the experiences of both the Consortium and the pool of subgrantees of the Culture at Work Africa initiative.

More information on the Culture At Work Africa initiative: www.cultureatworkafrica.net/

The Committee on culture collaborates with the Mediterranean City-to-City Migration Project (MC2CM), implemented by the UCLG Migration Community of Practice, ICMPD and UN-Habitat, and funded by the European Commission and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

MC2CM brings together cities and experts on migration issues, human rights, and sustainable urban development in order to improve migration governance at the city level. MC2CM promotes peer-to-peer dialogues and actions to support learning on specific urban challenges such as social cohesion, intercultural dialogue, employment, housing rights and provision of basic services for migrants.

On 11-12 December 2019 the Committee on culture participated at the MC2CM thematic learning event “Cultural Policies: a vector for migrants’ inclusion in urban context” held in the city of Casablanca, which explored the ways local governments can implement a cultural approach to migration as vector of inclusion and opportunities at the local level. Based on this experience, Jordi Baltà Portolés, cultural consultant and researcher at Trànsit Projectes (Barcelona) and an advisor to the UCLG Committee on Culture conducted a report with the same title, benefiting from the contributions of MC2CM city focal points and partners, as well as from expert Phil Wood’s background document for the event.

More information on the MC2CM project here.

In the framework of the last steps-forward of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) towards gender equality, the empowerment of women and the active participation of women in decision-making and public life, UCLG Committee on Culture has been promoting research on ‘The Role of Culture in Achieving Gender Equality’, as a contribution from the cultural perspective to address women’s rights and gender-responsive policies for sustainable development.

As a result of this research work led by Farida Shaheed, former UN Special Rapporteur in the field of Cultural Rights, the report "Cultural Actions Supporting Gender Equality in Cities and Territories" is informed by UCLG and UCLG Culture Committee policy documents and resources, as well as by contributions of UCLG members and consultation mechanisms on the latest elements of the international debate on culture, gender equality and sustainable development.

Drawing upon data collected from UCLG archives, the experience and insights of UCLG members and partners that responded to an open call to submit gender-equality initiatives in the cultural field, extensive research of positive examples from around the globe and a series of key informant interviews, and noting too challenges that require further discussion and debate, the document presents policies, programmes or projects recently implemented at the local level which constitute inspiring achievements in this field, and includes a list of key policy areas to be considered, first and foremost, by cities and local governments in their policies relating to gender equality and culture.

This report was presented as a draft on 10 September 2021 at the UCLG Culture Summit held in Izmir and online, at the plenary session “Promoting Local Actions on Culture and Gender Equality”. The final version was published on 29 October 2021.

On Monday 26 April 2021 at 19h CET, the City of Barcelona organised an international roundtable entitled 'Culture is a right. Urban policies and international context for cultural rights', with the participation of serveral cities of the UCLG Committee on Culture.

The agenda included:

• Jordi Pascual, coordinador of UCLG Committee on Culture (facilitator)
• Joan Subirats, deputy on culture, science, education and community, Barcelona City Council 
• Luca Bergamo, initiator of the Rome Charter on the right to participate in cultural life
• Catarina Vaz-Pinto, councillor on culture of Lisbon and coPresident of the UCLG Committee on Culture
• Marlene Fautsch, representing Vannesa Bohórquez, minister on culture of Mexico City and coPresidente of the UCLG Committee on Culture
• Tere Badia, Secretary General of Culture Action Europe
• Daniel Granados, in charge of Cultural Rights, Barcelona City Council 

The session is now available on Youtube in English, Spanish and Catalan.

More information here.

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) recently released the French version of the "Future of Our Pasts" (2019) report aiming at increasing engagement of cultural heritage in climate action. 

The report highlights a number of ways in which the core considerations of cultural heritage intersect with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, including heightening ambition to address climate change, mitigating greenhouse gases, enhancing adaptive capacity, and planning for loss and damage.

The report is now available in English and French. 

More information here.

On last 20 April 2021, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), together with UN Habitat and Metropolis, and in partnership with the #culture2030goal campaign, Rome City Council and Palaexpo, organised a 'Cities Are Listening' session on culture.

Entitled 'Upgrading Culture in Sustainable Development: The Time is Now', the session aimed at consolidating a dialogue between global cultural civil society networks and local and regional governments in the frame of the UCLG Pact for the Future. In particular, the session allowed panelists and participants to give visibility to the campaign #culture2030goal; learn from the narratives, the activities and the challenges of global cultural networks; give visibility to the Rome Charter; visualize specific examples of work by the Orchestras of Transformation that relate culture and the arts with the SDGs; and learn from narratives, activities and challenges of UCLG members in the field of culture.

The session took place online on 20 April 2021, 15:00 – 17:00 CEST. The agenda of the session, as well as connexion details are available here.