UNESCO, World Bank commit to urban development, culture, resilience

Irina Bokova, Dir­ect­or-Gen­er­al of the United Nations Edu­ca­tion­al, Sci­entif­ic and Cul­tur­al Organ­iz­a­tion (UNESCO), declared: “Cul­ture and a people-centered approach are cent­ral to build­ing the urb­an future we want and ensur­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. This renewed com­mit­ment by a long-stand­ing UNESCO-World Bank part­ner­ship brings to the fore­front of the glob­al dis­cus­sion the crit­ic­al role that cul­ture plays in sup­port­ing coun­tries in achiev­ing the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals and the New Urb­an Agenda.”

It is estim­ated that two-thirds of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion will live in cit­ies by 2050. Thus the MoU is sup­posed to take into account of the urb­an dimen­sion of sus­tain­able development.

“[The MoU] expresses the com­mit­ment of both insti­tu­tions to max­im­ise the bene­fits of safe­guard­ing cul­tur­al her­it­age and pro­mot­ing cre­ativ­ity for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment through three stra­tegic areas of action: His­tor­ic urb­an land­scapes and urb­an regen­er­a­tion; Cul­tur­al and cre­at­ive indus­tries; and Resi­li­ence and dis­aster risk management.”

Sameh Wahba, Dir­ect­or of the Social, Urb­an, Rur­al and Resi­li­ence Glob­al Prac­tice of the World Bank, stressed that “cul­ture mat­ters for sus­tain­able urb­an devel­op­ment. It’s essen­tial for build­ing inclus­ive, resi­li­ent, pro­duct­ive, and sus­tain­able cit­ies and com­munit­ies for all.”

UNESCO and the World Bank say they will, over the next six years, “engage in devel­op­ing glob­al know­ledge, com­mon policy guid­ance, coun­try-level oper­a­tions and emer­gency responses to enhance sus­tain­able urb­an devel­op­ment and address post-dis­aster and post-con­flict situ­ations build­ing on cul­tur­al her­it­age and cre­ativ­ity as resources and assets”.

Their renewed col­lab­or­a­tion takes place in a world where “26 mil­lion people fall into poverty each year as a res­ult of nat­ur­al dis­asters, while con­flicts wreak hav­oc with cul­tur­al her­it­age and communities”.

The agree­ment coin­cides with the Year of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism for Devel­op­ment and the “need to ensure that the $1.8 bil­lion rev­en­ue the sec­tor is expec­ted to gen­er­ate by 2030 con­trib­utes to sus­tain­ab­il­ity and the pre­ser­va­tion of tan­gible and intan­gible heritage”.

The MoU also fore­sees work to “sup­port cul­tur­al diversity and the cre­at­ive indus­tries, which gen­er­ate US$2.25 bil­lion in rev­en­ues and cre­ate 29.5 mil­lion jobs world­wide. Pro­mot­ing cul­tur­al diversity has a dir­ect impact on socio-eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and sup­ports the com­pet­it­ive­ness of cit­ies, not­ably in devel­op­ing countries.”

Down­load the UNESCO/World Bank MoU (PDF 352 KB).

Fea­tured image: Sameh Wahba, Dir­ect­or of the Social, Urb­an, Rur­al and Resi­li­ence Glob­al Prac­tice of the World Bank (left) and Irina Bokova, Dir­ect­or-Gen­er­al of UNESCO, shake hands upon sign­ing the MoU. Source: UNESCO/World Bank.