Agenda 21 for culture

The Agenda 21 for culture is the reference document of the local governments to draw up their cultural policies. It’s based on the principles of cultural diversity, human rights, intercultural dialogue, participatory democracy, sustainability and peace.

The Agenda 21 for culture is a tool to promote the role of culture in local policies. The present canonical triangle of sustainable development - environment, social inclusion and economics - either doesn’t include culture or it is considered an instrumental element. Therefore, the Agenda 21 for culture is a tool to turn culture into a fourth pillar of sustainable development. This confirms the importance of having solid and autonomous cultural policies as well as the establishment of bridges to other dominions of the governance.

In September 2002, during the first World Public Meeting on Culture, held in Porto Alegre, it came up the idea to draw up a document guidelines for local cultural policies, a document comparable to what the Agenda 21 meant in 1992 for the environment.

After nearly two years of work (of discussion of previous drafts in conferences organized by the international cultural networks that encouraged its creation), the final document was approved on 8 May 2004 in Barcelona, and on 15 September it was submitted to the UN-HABITAT and UNESCO. From October of this same year, the world organization United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) (the UN of the cities) assumed the coordination of the Agenda 21 for culture. UCLG is the world’s biggest association of local governments, founded on May 2004 to defend democracy and local autonomy and to give voice to the cities in international forums.

In the UCLG, the Agenda 21 for culture is managed by the Committee on culture, which is chaired by the Lille-Métropole and co-chaired by Buenos Aires, México DF and Montreal. The cities of Angers, Barcelona and Milán Vice-presidents. It was also agreed to invite three other cities (one from Africa, one from Middle East/Asia and one from Asia/Pacific) to join the Board as Vice-Presidents. Before 2012, the Committee on culture was chaired by Barcelona city council, and , Lille, Buenos Aires and Montreal councils are its vice presidents.

...
Wikipedia