Medculture

About Med Culture

Med Culture is a 4-year (2014-2018) regional programme funded by the European Union to accompany partner countries in south of the Mediterranean in the development and improvement of cultural policies and practices related to the culture sector. The approach is consultative/participative and takes place in partnership with civil society actors, ministries, private and public institutions involved in culture as well as other related sectors.

Med Culture curates the design and implementation of priority-based actions identified through wide consultations both with national authorities, civil society actors, as well as International organisations, and regional EU-funded programmes.

The countries involved are Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Palestine, and Libya with the exception of Syria where cooperation is currently suspended until further notice from the European Commission.

Med Culture’s ultimate goal is to pave the way towards the development of institutional and social environments that will confirm culture as vector for freedom of expression and sustainable development. 

More specifically to:

• Improve the governance of the culture sector including promotion of inter-ministerial cooperation, elaboration of national action plans for culture, and improving organisational structures in cooperation with peers across the region.
• Strengthen mutual development of capacities among peers of civil society organisations (CSOs,) and public and private sectors.
• Broaden the base by involving young generations, developing activities and audiences in peripheries, promoting cross sector collaborations and collaborations among cultural practitioners across the region.
• Promote sharing and access to information of available resources online and best practices through Med Culture’s website.

In practical terms Med Culture objectives translate into the following actions:

• Definition of national action plans for culture in four countries: Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, and Palestine. 
• Definition of guidelines for improvement of institutional structures and promoting inter-ministerial cooperation: This specific activity aims to enhance the institutional environment for better governance of the culture sector in the region.
• Definition of guidelines and promotion of pilot projects for the enhancement of higher education and vocational training in cultural and artistic disciplines. This activity involves five countries: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Palestine.   
• Definition of actions for broadening the base and promoting culture in the peripheries:  This activity involves all countries. The purpose is to create models of collaboration/partnerships that address issues such as cultivating larger participation in cultural activities and involvement of audiences in general and youth in particular. It will mainly address the situation in remote areas and look into improving resources and infrastructures.
• Cooperation, pooling resources and networking: A concrete example that falls under this theme at a national level is studying the feasibility of a “need” voiced by cultural practitioners in Jordan and Egypt for the establishment of a body that will advocate, lobby and fundraise for culture as well as promote artistic expression and address issues at the core of the development of the sector.
• Capacity building of cultural advocacy and lobbying methodologies: This key priority will be tackled at two levels: 1) identifying, gathering and sharing of data to inform policy-making, 2) empowering professionals with advocacy tools. One concrete example is supporting and promoting the mapping of the cultural sector in Lebanon, Tunisia and Algeria as a preliminary step for cultural policy development. The data collected allows a proper diagnosis of the situation and identification of aspects that require further improvement, etc.
• Promoting employability, status of the artist, and entrepreneurial approaches to culture: Activities under this theme mainly aim at identifying business tools and approaches that could ensure efficient management of resources and promote cultural and artistic professions as self-employment careers. This aspect of the cultural and sustainable business approach comes as a response to high unemployment rates in the region in particular among young people and women.  
• Two regional cultural policy and management workshops. This activity aims at connecting the cultural field with other sectors and disciplines, with all the paradoxes and challenges that such approach might involve.
• Promotion of information sharing and dissemination. This involves the establishment of a website that is specifically designed to offer an overview of the culture sectors in 7 South Mediterranean countries. The website consists of searchable databases of country profiles, regional and international resources i.e. donors, key reports, studies, key conventions, key opportunities, best practices, news, feature stories, infographics, and other artistic illustrations depicting the situation in the involved countries and beyond.
• Commissioned studies tackling key themes identified during the consultation phase across the region to inform the design of specific capacity development activities. There are four studies in total:

1. The social and economic impact of the Festival de Musique sacrée de Fès, Morocco.
2. Measuring Higher Education in artistic disciplines and certification in three pilot countries; Lebanon, Algeria and Palestine.
3. Employability in relation to the culture sector in four countries; Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Palestine. 
4. Higher education and life-long learning for cultural policies and management in 6 countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia.

Which tools and methodologies will make all of this happen?

• Peer-to peer (P2P) activities represent an advanced form of capacity development involving cultural practitioners from similar fields of expertise, to discuss, propose and contribute workable solutions within themes that cross cut in the region, and where the “national” feeds into to the “regional” and vice-versa, and where roles are shared among authorities and cultural practitioners in the civil society.
• Envisioning workshops where strategic planning, assessment of needs, resourceful management, and other project management cycle aspects are brought together to create a shared vision for incurring change and a well-thought path to the future. 
• Open calls. Cultural practitioners will be able to take part in Med Culture activities including P2P through open calls addressing targeted actions and participation to regional conferences.
• Wiki Culture (hyper link) a tool at the service of cultural practitioners who are in search of simple, accessible and practical step by step in cultural management fields. Cultural practitioners are also invited to contribute modifications, additions, and proposals to improve the content. A tool encouraging mutual learning processes and curated ownership of Med Culture’s goals and actions.
• Regional Conferences are large networking events where various stakeholders meet to exchange on various aspects of culture development and be introduced to case studies of good practices in the region.

How to keep the conversation going?

Med Culture makes sure to maintain the consultative and participative approaches throughout its life cycle with the support of two types of platforms:

National Focus Groups (NFG)

By bringing together representatives of the authorities, the civil society and private sector in each partner country, Med Culture values the contribution and mediation role of each member of the NFGs in promoting exchanges and common understanding of priorities and best practices to address them. Thus the importance of such platforms in feeding a work in progress and achieving concrete results both at national and regional levels.

Houna aShabab

Involving young cultural practitioners in the conversation and eventually Med Culture’s activities, is essential both for the development and the sustainability of programme actions and on the long run of the culture sector itself. Houna aShabab constitutes an attempt to channel the innovative energy of young people by offering them the possibility to participate in the design of training sessions specifically tailored to their needs, and interact with their peers around issues that could contribute to their professional and personal growth.