Culture and Sustainable Development

A/RES/78/161View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 19bCulture and sustainable development, published in 2023.

What other versions does this mandate have?

8 versions · 2014–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/80/148

2025A/RES/80/148Culture and sustainable developmentLatestCompare with previous version
2023A/RES/78/161Culture and sustainable developmentCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/76/214Culture and sustainable developmentCompare with previous version
2020A/RES/74/230Culture and sustainable developmentCompare with previous version
2018A/RES/72/229Culture and sustainable developmentCompare with previous version

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What subjects does this mandate have?

2 topics

Culture Sustainable Development

What does this mandate say?

46 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the note by the Secretary-General transmitting the report of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization;

Reaffirms the role of culture as an enabler of sustainable development that provides people and communities with a strong sense of identity and social cohesion and contributes to more effective and sustainable development policies and measures at all levels, and stresses in this regard that policies responsive to cultural contexts can yield better, sustainable, inclusive and equitable development outcomes;

Also reaffirms the intrinsic value of culture, and recognizes its contribution to all three dimensions of sustainable development;

Recognizes the power of culture as a driver of sustainable development, which contributes to fostering social inclusion and developing a strong and viable economic sector by generating income, creating decent jobs for all, and addressing both the economic and social dimensions of poverty through cultural heritage, including its protection and preservation, and cultural and creative sectors, while providing innovative and effective solutions to cross-cutting issues, such as education, health, gender equality and women’s empowerment, technology and the environment;

Calls for enhanced support, including additional financial resources and investments, for the cultural and creative sectors, including in the context of COVID-19 recovery efforts, while recognizing culture’s fundamental role in societies and its impact on sustainable development, to protect artists and cultural professionals, foster knowledge, innovation and intercultural dialogue, adapt them to the digital transformation, strengthen linkages between culture and education, safeguard cultural heritage and traditional and ancestral knowledge, including of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, promote peaceful and inclusive societies, engage all segments of society through culture, including by noting the challenges faced by women and youth, address the impacts of the pandemic on the cultural value chain and cultural diversity, reinforce interlinkages between culture and nature, and harness the potential and transformative impact of culture for sustainable development, recognizing its multidimensional impact on the resilience, well-being and prosperity of people and their communities;

Emphasizes the important contribution of culture to the three dimensions of sustainable development and to the achievement of national development objectives, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals, as well as other internationally agreed development goals, and in this regard acknowledges:

That culture contributes to inclusive economic development, as cultural heritage preservation, cultural and creative sectors, sustainable cultural tourism and cultural infrastructure, including urban regeneration, are sources of income generation, job creation and decent work for all, including at the community level, thus improving living conditions and fostering community-based economic growth, and contribute to the empowerment of individuals;

That culture contributes to inclusive social development for all, including local communities, and Indigenous Peoples, with respect for cultural diversity, safeguarding of the cultural and natural heritage, fostering of cultural institutions and strengthening of cultural and creative sectors, in urban and rural contexts;

That culture contributes to environmental sustainability, since the protection of cultural and biological diversity and natural heritage is important for sustainable development, and that support for traditional systems of environmental protection, and resource management, can contribute to the increased sustainability of fragile ecosystems and the conservation, protection and sustainable use of biodiversity and to avoiding land degradation and addressing climate change;

Reaffirms that sustainable development cannot be realized without peace and security and that peace and security will be at risk without sustainable development, and acknowledges that culture can contribute to sustainable development by constituting a valuable resource for enabling communities to participate fully in social and cultural life, facilitating inclusive governance and dialogue at the national, regional and international levels and contributing to conflict prevention and resolution, as well as to reconciliation, recovery and resilience;

Reaffirms its commitment to embracing diversity in cities and human settlements, to strengthening social cohesion, intercultural dialogue and understanding, tolerance, mutual respect, gender equality and women’s empowerment, innovation, entrepreneurship, inclusion, identity and safety, and the dignity of all people, including people in vulnerable situations, as well as to fostering liveability and a vibrant urban economy and to taking steps to ensure that local institutions promote pluralism and peaceful coexistence within increasingly heterogeneous and multicultural societies;

Recognizes that culture should be taken into account in the promotion and implementation of new sustainable consumption and production patterns that contribute to the responsible use of resources and address the adverse impacts of climate change;

Acknowledges that quality education, non-formal education and lifelong learning are enriched by culture, transmitting shared values, knowledge and skills, and also acknowledges that culture and arts education can make a direct contribution to the constructive transformation of educational systems, including through technical and vocational education and training, to meet the needs of learners in a rapidly changing world and the need for a creative and adaptive workforce;

Calls for the development of learners’ potential for creativity and innovation, their capacity to enjoy and to express themselves through the arts, their awareness of history and the diversity of cultures, as well as the promotion of education for the protection of cultural and natural heritage and places of memory whose existence is necessary for the safeguarding of cultural expressions;

Recalls the inclusion in the 2030 Agenda of several targets reflecting the contribution of culture to sustainable development, also recalls that the Sustainable Development Goals and targets are integrated and indivisible and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development, and in this regard looks forward to their achievement, building on the power of culture as an enabler and driver of progress on the Sustainable Development Goals;

Welcomes the efforts and initiatives of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, as the mandated United Nations agency on culture, to strengthen and measure the transformational impact of culture on the realization of the 2030 Agenda, building on information and data provided by the Member States in the framework of the periodic reports of the complete set of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization instruments in the field of culture and other related indicator frameworks, including the Culture 2030 Indicators;

Decides to give consideration, as appropriate, to the contribution of culture to sustainable development in the follow-up and review framework of the 2030 Agenda, including pursuant to the review of Goal 11, which would generate an important boost for implementation of Goal 11 between now and 2030;

Takes note with appreciation of the high-level event on culture and sustainable development in July 2023, convened by the President of the General Assembly, with the support of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, on the occasion of the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, pursuant to resolution 76/214;

Welcomes the convening of the World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development, also known as “Mondiacult 2022”, hosted by the Government of Mexico from 28 to 30 September 2022, looks forward to the forthcoming World Conference on Culture and Arts Education, to be held in the United Arab Emirates in 2024, for the further strengthening of the linkages between culture and education, and welcomes the convening in Saudi Arabia of the forty-fifth session of the World Heritage Committee, from 10 to 25 September 2023;

Invites all countries, as well as intergovernmental bodies and organizations of the United Nations system, within their respective mandates and resources, relevant non-governmental organizations and all other relevant stakeholders:

To raise public awareness of the importance of cultural diversity for sustainable development, promoting its positive value through education and media tools, while also pursuing multilingualism as a mean of promoting, protecting and preserving diversity of languages and cultures globally;

To ensure a more visible and effective integration and mainstreaming of culture into economic, social and environmental development policies and strategies at all levels;

To ensure that women and men can equally access, participate in and contribute to cultural life and decision-making, and to further commit themselves to the development of cultural policies and programmes with a gender perspective at the local, national and international levels in order to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls;

To undertake relevant intercultural dialogue and cooperation and cultural diversity programmes for youth to engage in a multicultural society, participate in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda, achieve better educational results and acquire a broader and more diverse range of skills and competences;

To promote capacity-building, where appropriate, at all levels for the development of dynamic cultural and creative sectors, in particular by encouraging creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, including for women and youth, supporting the development of cultural institutions and cultural and creative sectors, providing technical and vocational training for culture professionals and increasing employment opportunities in the cultural and creative sectors for sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth and development;

To actively support the emergence of local markets for cultural goods and services and to facilitate the effective, equitable and licit access of such goods and services to international markets, including in the digital environment, taking into account the expanding range of cultural production and consumption and, for States parties thereto, the provisions of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, adopted in 2005;

To promote cultural and linguistic diversity, and equal access to cultural expressions in the digital environment, and to reinforce more balanced global flows of cultural goods and services, by guaranteeing the social and economic rights of artists and cultural professionals, and better regulating digital platforms;

To preserve and maintain local and Indigenous traditional knowledge and community practices of environmental management, which are valuable examples of culture as a vehicle for sustainable development, and to foster synergies between modern science and technology and local and Indigenous knowledge, practices and innovation;

To accelerate efforts to protect cultural and natural heritage from extreme weather events, sea level rise, desertification and other threats exacerbated by climate change, which jeopardize its integrity and preservation for present and future generations;

To promote global awareness of the linkages between cultural and biological diversity, including through the protection and preservation and encouragement of the customary use of biological resources, in accordance with traditional cultural practices, as an important element of a comprehensive approach to sustainable development;

To support national legal frameworks and policies for the protection and preservation of cultural heritage and cultural property, encouraging initiatives and cooperation among States, including through the promotion of bilateral and multilateral cooperation, as relevant, to fight against illicit trafficking in cultural property, and for the return or restitution of cultural property, in accordance with national legislation and applicable international legal frameworks;

To support national legal frameworks and policies to enable intellectual property rights to sustain those involved in cultural creativity, including by promoting international cooperation to prevent the misappropriation of creative works;

To promote access to and/or the repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with Indigenous Peoples concerned;

To note that, in achieving these objectives, innovative mechanisms of financing, public and private, can make a positive contribution in assisting developing countries in mobilizing additional resources for development on a stable, predictable and voluntary basis, and to reiterate that such voluntary mechanisms should be effective, should aim to mobilize resources that are stable and predictable, should supplement and not be a substitute for traditional sources of financing, should be disbursed in accordance with the priorities of developing countries and should not unduly burden such countries;

To mobilize culture as a vehicle to foster tolerance, mutual understanding, peace and reconciliation in the context of conflict-prevention, conflict-resolution and peacebuilding processes;

Expresses deep concern that cultural property, including religious sites, shrines and cemeteries, and objects, is increasingly targeted by terrorist attacks and vandalism, often resulting in its damage, theft or complete destruction, and condemns such attacks;

Encourages all countries, intergovernmental bodies, organizations of the United Nations system, as appropriate, within their existing mandates, relevant non-governmental organizations and all other relevant stakeholders to enhance international cooperation in supporting the efforts of developing countries towards the development and strengthening of cultural and creative sectors, cultural tourism and culture-related microenterprises and to assist those countries in developing the necessary infrastructure and skills, as well as in mastering information and communications technologies and in gaining access to new technologies on mutually agreed terms;

Encourages initiatives to foster cultural cooperation agreements and networks at the local, national and regional levels for knowledge and information-sharing for sustainable development;

Also encourages programmes that facilitate social benefits and economic rights for artists and cultural professionals, including those working in the digital environment, thus promoting opportunities for decent work, fair remuneration and equal pay for work of equal value, as well as training in the light of technological advancement and digitalization;

Invites the organizations of the United Nations system, in particular the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to continue to provide support, to facilitate financing and to assist countries, upon their request, in developing their national capacities to optimize the contribution of culture to sustainable development, including through policy advice, information-sharing, the exchange of best practices, data collection, research and study and the use of appropriate evaluation indicators, as well as to implement applicable international cultural conventions, taking into account the relevant resolutions of the General Assembly;

Invites the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and other relevant United Nations bodies to continue to assess, in consultation with countries, the contribution of culture to the achievement of sustainable development through the compilation of quantitative and qualitative data, including indicators and statistics, with a view to informing development policies and relevant reports, where appropriate, and to continue to act as a platform for exchange among countries on the linkages between culture and sustainable development, including through a World Forum on Cultural Policies, to be held every four years, from 2025 onwards;

Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that United Nations country teams continue to further integrate and mainstream culture into their programming exercises, in particular United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks, in consultation with relevant national authorities, when assisting countries in the pursuit of their development objectives;

Recognizes the role of the voluntary national reviews in generating valuable lessons learned and best practices on the contribution of culture to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, and invites countries to integrate culture and creative economy in the preparation and presentation of the voluntary national reviews;

Encourages all countries, intergovernmental bodies, organizations of the United Nations system, relevant non-governmental organizations and all other relevant stakeholders to give due consideration to the contribution of culture to the achievement of sustainable development in the formulation of national, regional and international development policies and international cooperation instruments, and in this regard, building upon the discussion at the previous high-level event on culture and sustainable development, invites the President of the General Assembly to host a one-day high-level interactive dialogue on this subject, within existing resources, during the seventy-ninth session of the Assembly, and to invite the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to support the President of the Assembly, within its existing mandates;

Reaffirms the commitment at the very heart of the 2030 Agenda to leave no one behind and commit to taking more tangible steps to support people in vulnerable situations and the most vulnerable countries and to reach the furthest behind first;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its eightieth session a report on the implementation of the present resolution and decides to include in the provisional agenda of its eightieth session, under the item entitled “Globalization and interdependence”, the sub-item entitled “Culture and sustainable development”.

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