The mainstreaming of the cultural dimension in development policies

Sandra, thank you for your questions and thanks to all comments. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

As practitioner and researcher in "intercultural" issues I would like to inform you "à toutes fins utiles" that between 2004-2008 some modest butreally interesting  initiatives   took place at the EC ( EuroepAid as leader): a working group, and then some awareness and pilote training sessions called ” la Dimension culturelle du développement”).

From what I remember thoughts and ideas from the participants  were really  rich . Some of the participants are still in touch,  exchanging  research and practice, and I suppose there will be no problem in sharing  all this   with you  or more broadly.  

Isabel Mohedano Sohm
T + 32 2 401 68 88
imohedano@indra.es
www.indra.es

René gives us some interesting examples relating to reconstruction in Haiti which confirm the
opinion I have formed, through my professional experience, that NGOs and
development experts have, for many years, been trying to apply the principle of hte mainstreaming of culture to development activities. Indeed, many of them are well aware of the risk of failure if they don’t view the country, the
region and the local people from an anthropological perspective.

What I was asking
myself, when reading the EC declarations about the importance of culture in
development policies, was exactly how the Commission could concretize these principles.

For example, what
about considering field studies carried out by cultural anthropologists or researchers as a
way of achieving a good score in the project evaluation? Or maybe it would be good if the EC favoured participatory appraisal applications? And, as Nils
says, what about the importance of spending time building relations and
planning interventions which allow for concrete and sustainable development?

Christoph’s affirmation about training in intercultural relations for staff in EU
delegations is quite concrete. The second step for integrating findings in
calls for proposals is also interesting.

I will look at the instruments that Virginia and Christoph suggested to us. Thank you!

Please find below
the summary and the introduction of the last issue of our journal Africa e
Mediterraneo www.africaemediterraneo.it, which is about cultural policies in ACP countries and contains interesting contributions from a variety of points of view, including UNESCO, the EU, the African Union, various NGOs etc.

Thanks a lot, Sandra and René, for sparking off an interesting discussion. And thank you Virginia and Nils, for your valuable contributions.Let me describe my personal take on two of the issues raised: 1) on the mainstreaming of culture aspect and 2) on the link in between culture and development. 

Ad 1: Integrating the cultural dimension at all levels of development cooperation is a challenge formulated down by the Cotonou Agreement's § 27a. It is also part of the "twin-track approach" with regard to culture as a vital element in international relations as defined by the European agenda for culture in a globalizing world.

Now, we all are perfectly aware of the fact that this topic is as old as development cooperation itself, and I fear that there are no easy and clear-cut answers. Our colleagues from the "Agence Française de Développement" (AFD) have made accessible an interesting overview of the literature about the relationship between culture and development on their website:

http://www.afd.fr/jahia/Jahia/lang/en/home/publications/documentsdetrav…

Coming back to mainstreaming in the sense described above I think that there is a real danger that taking into account the cultural dimension could become just another "box to tick" when formulating a project. This is what Sandra rightly coined "generic answers" to gender mainstreaming approaches in calls for proposals.   

One of our first steps at EuropeAid is that we are currently (re-)developing a training course for staff in EU Delegations. As most of our development cooperation is with our bilateral and regional partners, it is important to train our staff on the ground to better take the cultural dimension in its anthropological nature into account. It is a matter of respect for our partner countries' cultures and also a way of making our cooperation more effective. Not only in terms of "intercultural competences", but also in terms of the impact of local socio-cultural structures on the projects' success. A second step would be to integrate some of the operational findings into calls for proposals – without falling into the mainstreaming trap described by Sandra.

Ad 2: I think that the last sentence of René's statement resumes it beautifully: culture has to tie into the general development of a country. This holds true in general, and also for the sad case of disaster struck Haiti. I will not go into detail here – also to leave room for other people who were present at Paris on Feb 16th - but any short-term-vision on disaster management and ad-hoc action to save cultural heritage is obviously not enough. However, in the context of post disaster needs assessments being done, culture should definitely play a role in Haiti, mainstreamed into infrastructure rehabilitation, and used as a powerful tool of societal discussion on reconstruction of a state by its active citizens and, finally and with a more mid- to long-term vision, for to foster cultural sectors that contribute to economic growth and job creation.

Thinking this in general terms leads us back to the question of building sustainable cultural sectors in partner countries and if development will follow automatically as Sandra states with reference to cultural actors in Africa. This would need a more precise definition of what we mean talking about sustainability in this respect. It would seem to me that the development of an enabling environment and a better governance of the cultural sectors in partner countries is a necessary condition for creativity to unleash its potential. At EuropeAid, we are already funding different initiatives, for example through the thematic programme "Investing in People", to try to tackle these issues.

Christoph PELZER Quality Management Officer: Culture - Unit: Social and Human Development & Migration - EuropeAid Cooperation Office

Avertissement : les informations contenues dans ce message n'engagent pas la Commission Européenne.

During a recent learning event in Zambia on technical cooperation, it was as always evident how the socio-cultural factors are shaping if and how things happen. As Sandra underlines, this is about identities and worldviews. Our abilities as normally shorter-term guests in other cultures to understand what is going on in front of our eyes is limited. The instruments in development cooperation are in this respect also very blunt: it is about shorter term results, about spending what is often very big money, and about being able to demonstrate effectiveness to European constituencies that have their particualr cultural outlook on what "development" is or should be.So much more important that the "fine arts"-culture - including its popular versions - is supported in modest and non-intrusive manners. Not only for its own sake, but also to help us understand a little better where we are, and the limits to what we can do. Getting less blunt and more modest in how we act in our development cooperation would be no small victory, and getting the importance of culture right - in its various connotations - would be a significant, though not at all easy, first step.     

There are new entry points to adress culturals aspects in development cooperation. Growing attention is now given to political and context analysis (as political economy and drivers of changes) well established now in governance and institutional/oragnisational  development. these approaches are very much focusing on culture and the way all translates in the amangement of public affaires and relations between actors.  There are plenty of tools being developped  in these areas that can inspire and encourage more crosscutting applications.  Many are posted on capacity4dev under the topic on Capacity development  (See our Toolkit on CD for exemple).  It will be interesting if they can help......

Sandra, let me share with you some comments I made during the Unesco preliminary ICC Haiti meeting last February 16. Some of the particpants came with proposals that did not show any relations with the general development and reconstruction of Haiti. 
Many suggestions showed a fundamental lack of insight into the circumstances in Haiti. For example one organisation suggested to start digitization of books to safeguard them. However, 1) digitization is not conservation 2) there is a lack of PCs and internet/PC infrastructure 3) thus there is hardly any knowledge on digitization 4) there is no school or public library system at all - 50% of the population is illiterate - 80% of the primary education system is private and of the worst quality -leaves the university libraries that do need attention 5) my conclusion: give priority to setting up a public library system and reorganize the education system and create public schools with libraries. Another example was the observation that most of the wooden 'gingerbread' dwellings were hardly damaged during the quake. The need to restore them is evident. Yet, the speaker did not know that Haiti has been deforested over the last decades because of destructive economic and agricultural policies. THus this ties in directly to reforestation programs and indirectly to agro-economic programs.
One should also wonder why the many government buildings located in the monumentous buildings of the 19th/early 20th century were practically all destroyed. Should we rebuilt all of them though we know they are not earthquake proof? Or are there other possibilities. perhaps building anew for some governement institutions?
Most of the famous paintings from haitian artists were in private galleries. Are we to use public money to set up these private galleries again or are we to start a publ;ic museum or even museums?
In short it became very clear that anything that is to be done for Haiti's cultural heritage in the mid- and long-term cannot be done without taking development into consideration. And that makes it highly political. In a country that is even lower on the Development Index than Afghanistan it will be very difficult to safeguard cultural heritage without ideas on a better future for Haiti.
Thus it works the other way around as well: cultural heritage (and culture in general) has to tie into the general development of a country as well.