Culture and international cooperation

“No future without culture”. Placing culture at the heart of international cooperation is essential if we are to make development a sustainable process. ECDPM applies a culturally sensitive approach to development by working on societal dynamics and their interaction with policy-making.

This new ECDPM dossier brings together its work on culture and development. ECDPM connects all those willing to learn or share how to promote development by working in a culturally sensitive way with culture professionals – either through the support of cultural and creative industries of developing countries, enhancing the intercultural communication skills of development practitioners or by implementing culturally sensitive initiatives.

Respect for and the affirmation of cultural diversity, as a form of development, is a goal in itself. It can also foster trade, investment and competitiveness and thereby contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals. Equally, it could promote innovation and development – as envisaged by the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

For the EU, cultural relations are not only an asset in the race for soft power competitiveness. In times of crisis in Europe, culture in external action has an enabling power, and is an increasingly dominant form of new diplomacy.

The EU has stepped up cultural engagement with the rest of the world, and this can serve the interests as well as the ideals of the EU and its member states. Such engagement would benefit both intercultural dialogue and global solidarity.

The EU is also taking culture more seriously in its development cooperation. As a follow-up to the EU preparatory action on culture in external relations, a new European strategy on culture in external relations is foreseen. While EU institutions will continue to support cultural activities, what is really needed now is more practice and concrete experiments to inform effective action.

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