Culture et Création | Introduction (1)

Introduction

The objective of this site is to gather and present all the available information, opinions and documents on the efforts of the Commission and the European Union, as well as the efforts of professionals of member states and partner states, in order to better recogniseand acknowledge the role of culture in development policies. Specific attention is given to the follow up on the conclusions of the Colloquium Culture and creation, vectors for development, organised in Brussels on the 1st to 3rd April 2009, and to the professionals' recommendations expressed in the Brussels Declaration.

Is there a New Approach to Culture and Development in the Strategy of the EU Development Policy?

by Stefano Manservisi

Something seems to change in the international and, particularly, in the European debate on development and development policy. During the past decades, culture has been having, unfortunately a marginal role in the development policies of international institutions and donors. Still today, culture is too frequently the last item of long policy wish lists and is often left out of the development policy strategies due to lack of funding. However, in the last years, the European Union (EU) has been taking steps towards a redefinition of the relation between culture and development,¹ to the point that for the European Union, culture is now increasingly recognized as an important part of its main development policy.

As stated in the 2007 European Commission’s Communication on An European Agenda for Culture in a Globalized World, culture has a double dimension:²
1) on one hand, culture has an anthropological nature, and thus, «culture lies at the heart of human development and civilization»,³ culture is what makes us what we are, it is the source of our primal identity and our values, the heart of our hopes and our beliefs, of our ways of relating to the others and to the objects that surround us. Culture is, to put it simply, the shades through which we see the world; 2) on the other hand, culture has a second nature, and that is the one that refers to the creative and innovative dimension: arts and cultural goods and services. In order to improve its development strategy and to make it more sustainable and more effective, these last years the EU has focused on both these pillars, trying to find the way how to strengthen the cultural development policy with ACP and other partner countries and striving to include a cultural approach in its development policies in general.

The European Commission believes that any successful development must build upon an appropriate cultural dimension as an element of social cohesion and inclusion, social stability, empowerment of youth, women and the disabled, and promotion of democracy and human rights. Perhaps this can be better shown by an example. In a recent intervention in the last edition of the European Development Days, held in October in Stockholm, Joy Mboya, Executive Director of the GoDown Arts Centre in Nairobi, Kenya, explained how youth stemming from deprived and marginal communities had come to be integrated in the Kenyan society through dance and through participation in common projects in her arts centre. Culture, and more precisely dance and the scenic arts, had given these marginalised youngsters a stable job and a passion to become part of their communities and to gain their acknowledgement as artists and as citizens. Culture also plays an important role in conflict and postconflict zones, for inter-cultural dialogue is a key element in brining about peace and reconciliation between communities. For instance, in recent years, the Sarajevo Film Festival, which held its first edition in 1995 in a climate of smoking guns and dire inter-cultural hatred, has been working hard to bring people in the Balkans together, encouraging co-productions of young directors from the different Balkan regions and promoting, quite successfully, an atmosphere of understanding, tolerance, and exchange of ideas and experiences.

Finally, culture and cultural industries have a great economic potential, either through heritage and responsible cultural tourism, or through economic revenues of cultural products. Paradoxically, culture is often misleadingly thought of as a weak economic sector. In reality, sound evidence shows the contrary. The cultural sector contributed to 2.6% of the aggregate European GDP in 2003. In the same year, the contribution to the European GDP of real estate activities was 2.1%; the food, beverage and tobacco industries contributed 1.9%, and the textile industry 0.5%.⁴ It is true that when it comes to developing countries it is difficult to find comprehensive studies or statistics concerning the economic share of the cultural sectors. Nonetheless, such studies, where they exist, prove the economic importance of culture. In Mali, for example, the direct economic weight of the cultural sectors reached 2.38% of the GDP in 2006, which is subsequently reflected in terms of employment in around 115.000 jobs in 2004, approximately 5.85%⁵ of the overall active population in Mali.⁶

A key issue for Developing countries is the access to regional and international markets for their cultural products and services: there the EU can make a real difference! The link between culture, development, and social stability is therefore clear and has different dimensions. Culture can be either a tool for dialogue and social inclusion or a powerful driving economic force. In addition, a creative and culturally active society is a dynamic element of economic and social innovation; it plants the seeds for original ideas to flourish and gives new and renovated inputs to the social body. Finally, culture needs to be present as an issue of concern in any development strategy.

In the past certain development policies have failed because policy makers have not taken into account cultural obstacles. In that sense, the European Commission is aiming for a new approach that overcomes the problems caused by the occasional clash of local cultures and development strategies. This new approach would like to introduce the cultural dimension as a holistic element of the European development policy strategy, mainstreaming culture from the common trunk of development to all of its different branches.

Next: What is the Current Framework?

Culture and creativity

Introduction

Is there a New Approach to Culture and Development in the Strategy of the EU Development Policy?

Which are the available development policy instruments for culture?