The campaign

In the years leading to the adoption of the SDGs, several global networks campaigned, under the banner ‘The Future We Want Includes Culture’, for the inclusion of one specific goal devoted to culture, or for the integration of cultural aspects across the SDGs. This campaign was also known as the #culture2015goal campaign.

The networks leading the campaign were: IFACCA, IFCCD, Agenda 21 for culture (UCLG), Culture Action Europe, Arterial Network, IMC - International Music Council, ICOMOS, IFLA and the Latinoamerican Network of Arts for Social Transformation.

Four documents, including a manifesto, a declaration on the inclusion of culture in the 2030 Agenda, a proposal of possible indicators for measuring the cultural aspects of the SDGs, and an assessment of the final 2030 Agenda, were produced between 2013 and 2015.

Background

The International Congress "Culture: Key to Sustainable Development" was held in Hangzhou (China) on 15-17 May 2013. 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. A high level delegation of UCLG was present in Hangzhou and the UCLG Culture Committee prepared this document to assist members and partners.

Since 2015, the Committee on Culture of UCLG has been working closely on the place of culture in the global agendas, and more especifically on the relation between culture and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of " Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" of the United Nations.

As the main facilitator of the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments, UCLG reports every year since 2016 to the High Level Political Forum of the UN (HLPF) on the evaluation of SDGs. The Committee on Culture of UCLG has been contributing to this reporting process, and published the three following reports.

New Urban Agenda

Habitat is the global conference on cities and human settlements organized every 20 years by the United Nations (UN). Habitat III, the 3rd conference took place in Quito (Ecuador) in October 2016, with the topic 'sustainable urbanization'.

We, as the Committe on culture of UCLG, participated in this major international meeting. You can follow the messages that were exchanged and disseminated during the event in this storify.

Previous steps

Previously, three meetings of the Preparatory Committee of Habitat III (PREP COM) took place in New York (September 2014), in Nairobi (April 2015) and in Surabaya (July 2016). Our former President, Catherine Cullen, participated in these meetings. In September 2014, Recommendations made by the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments for Post-2015 Development Agenda towards Habitat III in this context include "Culture as a driver and enabler of sustainable development" as a key policy area.

In the framework of preparations for Habitat III, the UN Task Team had published 22 issue papers, as summary documents on a range of areas related to housing and sustainable development. Among these is an issue paper on "Urban Culture and Heritage". Following the publication of these issue papers, a series of online "Urban Dialogues" was launched in July 2015.

In this context, the UCLG Committee on Culture has formulated a set of comments to the issue paper on "Urban Culture and Heritage", which you can also find below. The Committee welcomed the publication of this paper and believes that the new Urban Agenda should provide details of a culture-based approach to local sustainable development.

Finally, in January-March 2017, the Secretariat of Habitat III convened several Policy Units, composed by 20 experts each, bringing together individual experts from a variety of fields, including academia, government, civil society and other regional and international bodies. The coordinator of the UCLG Committee on culture, Jordi Pascual, was a member of the Policy Unit 2. The final policy paper entitled "Sociocultural urban frameworks", prepared by the members of this Policy Unit, was distributed in the PrepCom III (July 2016).

Following, you can read:

• The comments of the Committee on culture of UCLG, together with 7 other global cultural networks, to the zero-draft of the New Urban Agenda to be presented during the Habitat III Conference in Quito in October 2016.
• The speech of Luciana Blasco, the undersecretary of Culture of Buenos Aires, and Representative of the Committee on Culture of UCLG, during the Informal hearings with local authorities associations for the preparation of the New Urban Agenda of Habitat III. New York, May 2016.
• The speech of Jordi Pascual, Coordinator of the Committee on culture of UCLG, during the Habitat III Policy Dialogue on "urban socio-cultural framework". Quito, October 2016.

GOLD is the name of the most important global report produced by UCLG. It is produced every three years. The new report is GOLD IV, and it was published in 2016.

Between December 2013 and January 2015, the Committee on culture was convened by the World Secretariat of UCLG to help in the definition of the GOLD IV report contents. "The role of culture in the sustainable development of cities" has been identified as one the seven key areas of interest for the GOLD IV report. These seven key areas correspond to the main topics of the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments for Post-2015 Development Agenda and Habitat III.

The results of this work are summarized in two documents elaborated by the same authors: "Operationalising culture in the sustainable development of cities" (short text, March 2014), and "Why must culture be at the heart of sustainable urban development?" (feature article, January 2016).

Culture 21 Plus. A new frame for Cultural Rights at the local level

Welcome to Culture 21 Plus, the document that updates our work on cultural rights in sustainable cities. It is structured on the three pillars that make up the UCLG Pact for the Future, namely: People, Planet and Government.

Culture 21 Plus is useful to (1) conduct self- assessment processes of the current state of local cultural policies, and (2) design local cultural strategies based on cultural rights and sustainability.

Culture 21 Plus will be implemented through a set of modules. Some modules are tailored to specific local contexts (metropolitan areas, intermediary cities, regions), while other modules address specific policy challenges (climate change, gender equality, or heritage). 

Have a look at the FRAME document, and let's talk about how Culture 21 Plus can be useful to you.

Culture 21 Plus. A new toolkit for Cultural Rights in Cities and Communities

UCLG has begun to draft a new toolkit to promote and implement Cultural Rights in Cities and Communities, to be adopted in 2025. It considers:

• The necessity of unfolding with care-based and rights-based concrete actions the UCLG Pact for the Future of Humanity: for the People, for the Planet, for the Government, adopted at the UCLG World Congress in Daejeon, in October 2022
• The Culture 21: Actions, adopted by UCLG in 2015
• The Rome Charter
• The concept of circular culture

The initial proposal of Culture 21 Plus outlines 6 blocks, with 30 key areas and 200 actions. It will be useful (1) to carry out a self-assessment of the state of play of the cultural policies of a territory; and (2) to design local cultural strategies based on cultural rights and sustainability.

We are in a “testing” phase! We already have an initial proposal, which is undergoing a process of experimentation, debate and shared cocreation with UCLG members, until its adoption in 2025.

If you stilll have questions on how can your city get involved, see the FAQs below. We are inviting cities and local or regional governments interested in “testing” Culture 21 Plus to write us at culture@uclg.org.
 

Three webinars have been organised in June 2024 in English, Spanish and French. We have already run tests in the following cities, and more tests are foreseen for 2024 and 2025:

#Culture2030Goal webinar

On 23 January 2024, from 12.00-15.00 GMT, the #Culture2030Goal campaign organised the webinar "Looking Ahead Culture in Sustainable Development in 2024 and Beyond" with the aim of sharing the background and the achievements of the campaign, and opening a conversation with key partners and all global cultural networks. 

The workshop gathered key partners to think together about the next steps, including the UN Summit of the Future (September 2024), the road towards a "Culture Goal" as well as the ongoing efforts to include "culture in delivering across the SDGs".

Participants received important updates on the place of culture in sustainable development and global development agendas, and had the opportunity to share their views and shape the upcoming work, hear from others about this key dimension of sustainable development.

Watch the session again here.

Input to the UN Pact for the Future

Read the contribution of the #Culture2030Goal campaign to the draft of the UN Pact for the Future. 

Growing Government Recognition of the Role of Culture in Development

Following the call for an explicit Culture Goal in future development agendas in the Mondiacult 2022 Declaration convened by UNESCO, the #Culture2030Goal campaign strongly welcomes the recognition of the essential role of culture by the members of the United Nations, G20, the European Union and BRICS in the past months. Read the full Statement.

Culture in the 2023 Voluntary National Reviews

In 2023, the #Culture2030Goal campaign released a piece on "Culture in the Voluntary National Reports: an Overview of the 2023 Reports" coordinated by IFLA and which highlights some of the different ways in which culture is addressed in these Reviews, celebrates good practices and indicates areas for further focus. 

Delivering A Culture Goal for Global Agendas

Following up the inclusion of the need for a Culture Goal to be included in global agendas for sustainable development in UNESCO's Mondiacult 2022 Conference final Declaration, the #culture2030goal campaign has recently released a Statement asking for transformative action towards concrete implementation. 

#culture2030goal #Mondiacult2022: Proposing a Culture Goal

In the context of UNESCO's #Mondiacult2022 Conference on Cultural Rights, the #culture2030goal campaign organised various sessions and presented a proposal for a dedicated Goal on Culture in the post-2030 sustainable development frameworks

Campaign side event #culture2030goal campaign at #HLPF 2022

In the context of the annual High Level Political Forum (HLPF) 2022, the #culture2030goal campaign organised a side event entitled "From local practices to global principles. Learning from local integration of culture in SDG implementation to build back better globally", highlighting how cultural actors, institutions and issues are being integrated into local development strategies, and the lessons this offers for efforts to achieve sustainable development towards 2030 and beyond.

The recording of the session is available on Youtube in English and a detailed article on the session is available here.

Event #ResiliArt x #Mondiacult2022 of the campaign #culture2030goal

The potential of culture to drive sustainable development is too often untapped. In a world where resilience, creativity, cohesion and a rights-based, people-centred approach are more essential than ever, we cannot afford to neglect culture in our efforts to respond to global challenges and build a better world. How can we ensure that culture is higher on the agenda and thus bring about the necessary paradigm shift?

Entitled ‘Towards a Culture Goal in the Sustainable Development Agenda’, the Mondiacult x ResiliArt event of the #culture2030goal campaign will explore how to do this, and the potential of a more explicit prioritisation of culture to make a difference. In doing so, it will also offer insights into how we can do better today, both in designing cultural policies that support sustainable development, and in designing sustainable development policies that fully integrate culture.

Find the concept note as well as the recording of the session below:

Official launch of the Declaration 

The official launch of the Declaration took place on 21 May 2020, on the occasion of World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. This date illustrates the commitment of the campaign towards the implementation of development goals, and in particular of the 2030 Agenda. In this context, the organisations behind the Declaration stress the need to ensure that culture is at the heart of the UN Decade of Action for Sustainable Development Goals. 

See the concept note of the launch. 

Presentation at the HLPF 2020.

Also, a parallel session entitled "Culture - An underutilised Accelerator ? Realising the Potential of Culture for Sustainable Development in the short and long term" was organised by the coalition at in the framework of the High Level Political Forum (HLPF 2020) on 13 July at 2020. 

See the video, press release and flyer for more information:

The UCLG Culture Summit is the main meeting point at global level of cities, local governments and other stakeholders that are committed to the effective implementation of policies and programmes on culture and sustainability.

Since 2015, UCLG has convened three editions of the UCLG Culture Summit, which were respectively hosted by the City of Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain, March 2015), the Jeju Self-Governing Special Province (Jeju-do, Republic of Korea, May 2017), and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (Argentina, April 2019). Following the success of the three first Culture Summit of UCLG, and considering the growing importance of culture in the framework of sustainable cities, the Executive Bureau of UCLG has decided to convene a 4th UCLG Culture Summit in 2021.

The 4th Culture Summit will be held in Izmir on next 9-11 September 2021, under the title “Culture: Shaping the Future”.

A virtual launch of the Summit was organised online and in Izmir on last 10 June 2021, from 14h30-16h30 CEST. A detailed article on the session is also available should you wish to know more.

Then, the 4th UCLG Culture Summit was organised in september 2021. The report of the Summit will be available soon. You can also read the detailed article which emphisizes the main highlights of the event, as well as the flickr albums of the first and second days of the Summit.

Check out the key speeches of Tunç Soyer, Mayor of Izmir, Uğur İbrahim Altay, Mayor of Konya and UCLG Co-president, Serhan Ada, Associate Professor, Head of Arts and Cultural Management Department and Director of the Cultural Policy and Management Research Center at the Istanbul Bilgi University, and Farida Shaheed, Director of the Shirkat Gah Women’s Resource centre in Pakistan, former UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights, and author of the UCLG report on “Culture and Gender Equality”, as well as the conversation between Karima Bennoune, UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights, and Luca Bergamo, impulsor of the Rome Charter, facilitated by Luca Trifone, Rome:

UCLG Culture Summit 2015 - Bilbao

The first UCLG Culture Summit was hosted by the City of Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain) from the 18-20 March 2015, with the title "Culture and Sustainable Cities".

It is an event to promote knowledge-sharing and networking of cities and local governments, recognizing the important place of culture in sustainable cities. It gathered all key stakholders in the promotion of cultural policies, with special emphasis on cities, local governments and urban actors. The following documents are the results of the Summit:

The first UCLG Culture Summit offered the members of the Committee on Culture of UCLG the opportunity to present, approve and adopt "Culture 21: Actions", and it showcased the best projects of the first edition of the International Award "UCLG - Mexico City - Culture 21". Additionally, the results of the Pilot Cities porgramme were presented. The Summit also connected the UN Post-2015 Development Agenda and culture, building on the work carried out in the process of defining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly #culture2015goal and #UrbanSDG. It was an occasion to exchange with the international community and UN Agencies as well as civil society organizations.

The Summit also held the 12th meeting of the Committee on Culture of UCLG.

Check out the key speeches that Ms. Catherine Cullen, President of the Committee on Culture of UCLG ; Mr. Daniel Innerarity, profesor of social and political philosophy and Inkerbasque researcher at the University of Basque Country, Ms. Farida Shaheed, Special Rapporteur of United Nations on Cultural Rights gave during the Summit, and Mr. Ibon Areso, former Mayor of Bilbao:

UCLG Culture Summit 2017 - Jeju

Following the success of the first UCLG Culture Summit, and considering the growing importance of culture in the framework of sustainable cities, the Executive Bureau of UCLG decided to convene a second UCLG Culture Summit in Jeju (Jeju-do, Republic of Korea) on 10-13 May 2017, entitled “Commitments and Actions for Culture in Sustainable Cities”. The UCLG Culture Summit is the main meeting point at global level of cities, local governments and other stakeholders that are committed to the effective implementation of policies and programmes on culture and sustainability. 

Over three days, the 2nd UCLG Culture Summit combined plenary sessions, smaller, thematic parallel sessions, project presentations and networking spaces. Discover the key moments of this great meeting: Storify, Flickr, Twitter, Youtube and our Communiqués.

Additional information about the Summit themes and structure is available on the Summit website. You can also find here the Terms of Reference for the organization of the "UCLG Culture Summit".

Check out the key speeches that Ms. María Victoria Alcáraz, Head of International relations and Networks, Ministry for Culture of the City of Buenos Aires and representing the copresidence of UCLG Committee on culture ; Ms. Karima Bennoune, UN Special Rapporteur for Cultural Rights ; Mr. WON Hee-ryong, Governor of Jeju's Self-governing Special Province ; Mr. KO Un, distinguished poet from Jeju ; Mr. Josep Roig, Secretary General of UCLG ; Mr. Mpho Parks Tau, President of UCLG:

Background

The first UCLG Culture Summit was hosted by the City of Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain) from the 18-20 March 2015, with the title "Culture and Sustainable Cities". It was a new event aiming to promote knowledge-sharing and networking of cities and local governments, recognizing the important place of culture in sustainable cities. It gathered all key stakholders in the promotion of cultural policies, with special emphasis on cities, local governments and urban actors.

DUBLIN HOSTED THE UCLG CULTURE SUMMIT 2023!

From 28 November to 1 December 2023, Dublin, Ireland, hosted the 5th UCLG Culture Summit, under the title Culture. Future. Goal. We Act to Bring Local Voices to Global Tables.

The Summit emphasised that culture is an integral part of sustainable cities, and promoted the sharing of experiences and innovations from cities across the world. The programme of the Summit ensured that special attention was paid to the relation between cultural policies and the climate emergency, the connection between culture and gender equality; as well as the role that cultural rights play in addressing the growing inequalities in our societies. The Summit discussed the “Culture Goal” proposal, championed by the #culture2030goal global campaign, and included in the final declaration of UNESCO’s Mondiacult 2022 Conference held in Mexico City on last 28-30 September 2022.

Dublin was the perfect host of the Summit. Dublin has demonstrated its ongoing commitment to being an active and visible part of a global movement working to ensure human rights, cultural diversity, sustainability and participatory democracy, placing culture at the heart of development. For Dublin to host this Summit has been a major boost for all those involved in cultural work and local government across the city, not only to feel part of a worldwide movement but in creating a lasting legacy for citizens and local partners. It gave international visibility to the city and offered the possibility for participants to discover the cultural assets of the city.

CHECK OUT THE FINAL VIDEO

To know more about the Summit you can consult the coverage of Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 of the meeting. Three video recaps are also available for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3. as well as a Flickr gallery with the pictures of the Summit! 

Read the background document here and the full Press Release here.

Read the speech delivered by Dublin's Councillor Cat O'Driscoll at the 2023 UCLG Retreat & Campus here.

The 6th UCLG Culture Summit will be held in Barcelona in September 2025, in the context of the 3rd Global Conference on Cultural Policies convened by UNESCO, Mondiacult 2025.

This Summit will be particularly exceptional. 

• A high-level session will be devoted to convey the key messages from the constituency to UNESCO for Mondiacult 2025. It is a fact that cities and local governments are leading the global action on cultural rights and people-centred policies.
• UCLG is a global leader in advocating for a Culture Goal in development agendas. We are proud to see this issue gaining increasing recognition in international discussions, culminating in its prominence as the main theme of Mondiacult 2025. The Summit will explore how and when UCLG can continue to drive this agenda forward globally.
• Also, the UCLG Culture Summit will serve to present Culture 21 Plus , the new framework document developed by the UCLG Committee on Culture, which reinforces the role of culture in sustainable development and a society based on care and wellbeing.

We invite you consider registration for the UCLG Culture Summit.

Due to the exceptional alignment between the UCLG Culture Summit and UNESCO’s Mondiacult Conference, registration will close on 31 August 2025. 

We invite you to check the background document of the 6th UCLG Culture Summit: