Opening up cultural governance through civil society participation

The chapter I wrote for UNESCO’s report “Re|shaping Policies for Creativity: Addressing Culture as a Global Public Good” (2022) is available here.

The report is the third edition of a series designed to monitor the implementation of the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. It provides a global overview of the state of the cultural and creative sectors through insightful new data that shed light on emerging trends at a global level and puts forward policy recommendations to foster creative ecosystems that contribute to a sustainable world by 2030 and beyond.

Recommendations

These are the nine recommendations I included in my chapter “Opening up cultural governance through civil society participation” (p. 117-137):

  1. Parties should further collaborate with CSOs in designing and implementing regional and national policies, measures, and COVID-19 recovery plans to ensure dynamic, sustainable, fair, and diverse cultural and creative sectors – including in the digital environment.

  2. Parties and CSOs should partner to assess legislative and regulatory environments through shared information systems and streamlined collaborative monitoring and evaluation efforts to provide enabling conditions for CSOs to leverage their involvement in cultural governance.

  3. Parties should implement open government principles and practices in cultural governance to increase public trust and foster civic innovation by connecting the dimensions of participation, transparency, and accountability. They should also broaden the participation spectrum to move from an approach based on information and consultation toward CSO empowerment strategies, giving them co-creation and co-decision opportunities as partners and/or consultants.

  4. Parties and CSOs need to adopt existing standards for public participation and co-creation and open data to help increase skills and capacities at all levels (including leadership) and design informed, context-specific, and purpose-driven policies for creativity.

  5. Parties should prioritize efforts to stimulate collaborations with professional organizations and support CSOs, artists, and cultural professionals from vulnerable groups and/or working in under-represented cultural domains and policy areas.

  6. Parties and CSOs should further recognize the potential of subnational partnerships to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions. The potential for innovative subnational practices to be replicated and scaled up across a national territory should also lead Parties to invest in building capacities for civic engagement practices and participatory methodologies, especially at the local level.

  7. Parties and CSOs should develop capacity-building programs to take advantage of new digital practices, tools, and online spaces for participatory dialogue and policy-making.

  8. Parties should implement and maintain sustainable and transparent funding schemes for CSOs at the national, regional, and international levels to secure opportunities for collaboration and networking, including in post-COVID-19 recovery plans. They should also facilitate public-private and civil society partnerships to develop new collaboration mechanisms in line with the 2030 Agenda and invest in capacity-building for CSOs to establish membership programs and offer services as complementary funding sources – especially in developing countries.

  9. Parties and CSOs should undertake additional research, monitoring, and evaluation to assess the use, effectiveness, and transparency of existing participatory dialogue and decision-making mechanisms in order to design and replicate innovative models. Further efforts should be made to move from ad hoc participatory mechanisms toward permanent and sustainable ones.
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