“When an old African man dies, a library burns down.” In this age, so prone to the viralization of great phrases, it is surprising that there is nothing that better illustrates the indissoluble relationship between culture, knowledge and development than this eternal quote wrongly attributed to the Malian writer, ethnologist and diplomat Amadou Hampâté Bâ. This great observer, convinced Africanist and tireless compiler of oral tradition, would today show deep concern about the weak link between these concepts, contrary to what he claimed before the general conference of UNESCO in 1960. There, he defended the values of oral culture as a means of recognizing the keys to progress, thus avoiding limiting its positive effects.
Despite the fact that there has been much debate about the importance of culture in development processes, the prevailing perception is that, although it can complement them, it is in no case a key element for them. This premise, long assumed by the world of cooperation, needs to be turned around. It is not a question of how to integrate culture –and cultural heritage– in these processes, but rather of definitively showing that they form an inherent part of any dynamic of the same, however limited or globalized it may be.
Basic references such as Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development Our Creative Diversity (1996)promoted by Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, or the publication of The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability: culture’s essential role in public planning (Jon Hawkes, 2001) inspiring turn of the document Culture is the fourth pillar of sustainable development (2010) –political orientation of the Union of Cities and Local Governments (UCLG)– reflect this idea and urgent need, reinforcing the importance of culture in understanding the world and its intrinsic relationship with sustainable development.
Sharing the urgency of refounding the Spanish Cooperation raised by José Antonio Alonso in this same forum, if it is about making a more effective cooperation that responds to the challenges of poverty, the cultural dimension and, therefore, heritage, they cannot be absent.
There is evidence that it is necessary to underpin global development with the greatest possible diversity, heritage, creation and cultural expression.
In tune with this pressing need, the program Heritage for Development (P>D) dean of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), with more than 30 years of history, began an update process last November. He did it at the Spanish Cooperation Training Center in Antigua Guatemala, an example in itself of this intrinsic and successful relationship between heritage and development. The starting point was the close link between cultural dynamics and the traditional dimensions of development (social, economic, environmental, gender).
The new challenges of the program are, first of all, to identify the relationship between the different cultural dimensions and the set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the 2030 Agenda for their mainstreaming. In this way, it would be guaranteed that the development processes contain the necessary comprehensiveness; are free of prejudices as much as possible and that, in their convoluted journey, they do not ignore key aspects that later limit the reduction of poverty or the improvement of the living conditions of the most vulnerable citizens.
The long journey of the AECID in the commitment to cultural heritage as a motor of progress would allow it to claim its position. Not only as an area of intervention in itself, but also as a transversal element in other actions, as is the case with gender equality or environmental sustainability, indisputable in our way of conceiving development.
Second, take advantage of the opportunity offered by the mandate of SDG 11 on human activities linked to the territory, an inexhaustible source of opportunities, but also of obstacles. Without the support of the culture and development approach, which provides a solid warp for advances in human progress, it will be difficult to find viable paths. Although its conspicuous absence from the SDGs is perhaps one of its main weaknesses, number 11 undoubtedly has a long way to go as a means of ambitious cultural mainstreaming, in the absence of a dreamed consubstantiality in the 2030 Agenda as a whole.
Finally, the recovery and enhancement of the knowledge and experience of the specialist staff of the AECID, must be ways to advance in the new stage that will begin with the long-awaited reform of the Agency, for which the first step has already been taken with the approval of the Draft Cooperation Law.
After 30 years of travel, an effective knowledge management must be imposed that rescues and systematizes the experience and evidence generated, allowing it to be contrasted and maximized without prejudice about the role of culture in sustainable development.
Despite the strong globalizing influence, there is evidence that it is necessary to underpin global development with the greatest possible diversity, heritage, creation and cultural expression, the basis of a society and citizenship as such. The P>D program must not distance itself from this vocation, making this indissoluble binomial its reason for being, silencing the critical voices that see the preservation and enhancement of heritage as a dynamic that is alien to the need to provide for people’s well-being.
Learning from the artistic, social and economic manifestations, in short, from our cultural heritage, is the way to focus on the contemporary development of societies and the subsequent future of the peoples that will continue and evolve with them.
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