Culture and Sustainable Development

A/RES/70/214View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 22c Culture and sustainable development, published in 2016.

What other versions does this mandate have?

8 versions · 2014–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/80/148

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2025	A/RES/80/148	Culture and sustainable development	4,749	62%Compare
2023	A/RES/78/161	Culture and sustainable development	4,844	80%Compare
2022	A/RES/76/214	Culture and sustainable development	4,494	81%Compare
2020	A/RES/74/230	Culture and sustainable development	3,710	67%Compare
2018	A/RES/72/229	Culture and sustainable development	2,814	81%Compare

What subjects does this mandate have?

2 subjects

Culture Sustainable Development

What’s in this document?

31 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms the role of culture as an enabler of sustainable development that provides people and communities with a strong sense of identity and social cohesion and contributes to more effective and sustainable development policies and measures at all levels, and stresses in this regard that policies responsive to cultural contexts can yield better, sustainable, inclusive and equitable development outcomes;

Recognizes the potential of culture as a driver of sustainable development, which contributes to a strong and viable economic sector by generating income, creating decent jobs and addressing both the economic and social dimensions of poverty through cultural heritage and cultural and creative industries, while providing innovative and effective solutions to cross-cutting issues, such as education, health, gender equality and the environment;

Emphasizes the important contribution of culture to the three dimensions of sustainable development and to the achievement of national development objectives and the Sustainable Development Goals and other internationally agreed development goals, and in this regard acknowledges:

That culture contributes to inclusive economic development, as cultural heritage, cultural and creative industries, sustainable cultural tourism and cultural infrastructure are sources of income generation and job creation, including at the community level, thus improving living conditions and fostering community-based economic growth, and contribute to empowering individuals;

That culture contributes to inclusive social development for all, including local communities and indigenous peoples, with respect for cultural diversity, safeguarding of the cultural and natural heritage, fostering of cultural institutions and strengthening of cultural and creative industries;

That culture contributes to environmental sustainability, since the protection of cultural and biological diversity and the natural heritage is crucial to sustainable development, while supporting traditional systems of environmental protection, and resource management can contribute to the increased sustainability of fragile ecosystems and the preservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, reducing land degradation and mitigating the effects of climate change;

Calls upon the relevant organizations of the United Nations system, within their respective mandates and resources, to ensure that no country is left behind in the implementation of the present resolution;

Reaffirms that sustainable development cannot be realized without peace and security and that peace and security will be at risk without sustainable development, and acknowledges that culture can contribute to sustainable development by constituting a valuable resource for empowering communities to participate fully in social and cultural life, facilitating inclusive governance and dialogue at the national, regional and international levels and contributing to conflict prevention and resolution, as well as to reconciliation and recovery;

Recognizes that culture should be taken into account in the promotion and implementation of new sustainable consumption and production patterns that contribute to the responsible use of resources and address the adverse impacts of climate change;

Acknowledges that quality education is enriched by culture, which transmits shared values, knowledge and skills;

Welcomes the inclusion in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of several targets reflecting the contribution of culture to sustainable development, recalls that the Sustainable Development Goals and targets are integrated and indivisible and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development, and in this regard looks forward to their achievement, building on the positive results and impact of programmes utilizing culture as an enabler of sustainable development;

Decides to give consideration, as appropriate, to the contribution of culture to sustainable development in the follow-up and review framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

Invites all countries, intergovernmental bodies, organizations of the United Nations system, relevant non-governmental organizations and all other relevant stakeholders:

To raise public awareness of the importance of cultural diversity for sustainable development, promoting its positive value through education and media tools;

To ensure a more visible and effective integration and mainstreaming of culture into economic, social and environmental development policies and strategies at all levels;

To ensure that women and men can equally access, participate in and contribute to cultural life and decision-making, and to further commit themselves to the development of cultural policies and programmes with a gender perspective at the local, national and international levels in order to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls;

To promote capacity-building, where appropriate, at all levels for the development of a dynamic cultural and creative sector, in particular by encouraging creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, supporting the development of cultural institutions and cultural industries, providing technical and vocational training for culture professionals and increasing employment opportunities in the cultural and creative sector for sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth and development;

To actively support the emergence of local markets for cultural goods and services and to facilitate the effective and licit access of such goods and services to international markets, taking into account the expanding range of cultural production and consumption and, for States parties to it, the provisions of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions;1

To preserve and maintain local and indigenous traditional knowledge and community practices of environmental management, which are valuable examples of culture as a vehicle for sustainable development, and to foster synergies between modern science and technology and local and indigenous knowledge, practices and innovation;

To promote global awareness of the linkages between cultural and biological diversity, including through the protection and encouragement of the customary use of biological resources, in accordance with traditional cultural practices, as a key element of a comprehensive approach to sustainable development;

To support national legal frameworks and policies for the protection and preservation of cultural heritage and cultural property,⁵ encouraging initiatives to fight against illicit trafficking in cultural property and the return of cultural property, in accordance with national legislation and applicable international legal frameworks, including by promoting international cooperation to prevent the misappropriation of cultural heritage and products, recognizing the importance of intellectual property rights in sustaining those involved in cultural creativity;

⁵As defined in article 1 of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 823, No. 11806).

To note that, in achieving these objectives, innovative mechanisms of financing can make a positive contribution in assisting developing countries in mobilizing additional resources for development on a stable, predictable and voluntary basis, and to reiterate that such voluntary mechanisms should be effective, should aim to mobilize resources that are stable and predictable, should supplement and not be a substitute for traditional sources of financing, should be disbursed in accordance with the priorities of developing countries and should not unduly burden such countries;

To mobilize culture as a vehicle to foster tolerance, mutual understanding, peace and reconciliation in the context of conflict-prevention, conflict-resolution and peacebuilding processes;

Expresses deep concern that cultural property, including religious sites and objects, is increasingly targeted by terrorist attacks, often resulting in its damage, theft or complete destruction, and condemns such attacks;

Encourages all countries, intergovernmental bodies, organizations of the United Nations system, relevant non-governmental organizations and all other relevant stakeholders to enhance international cooperation in supporting the efforts of developing countries towards the development, strengthening and consolidation of cultural industries, cultural tourism and culture-related microenterprises and to assist those countries in developing the necessary infrastructure and skills, as well as in mastering information and communications technologies and in gaining access to new technologies on mutually agreed terms;

Encourages initiatives to foster cultural cooperation agreements and networks at the regional level for knowledge- and information-sharing for sustainable development;

Invites the organizations of the United Nations system, in particular the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to continue to provide support, to facilitate financing and to assist Member States, upon their request, in developing their national capacities to optimize the contribution of culture to sustainable development, including through information-sharing, the exchange of best practices, data collection, research and study and the use of appropriate evaluation indicators, as well as to implement applicable international cultural conventions, taking into account the relevant resolutions of the General Assembly;

Invites the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and other relevant United Nations bodies to continue to assess, in consultation with Member States, the contribution of culture to the achievement of sustainable development through the compilation of quantitative data, including indicators and statistics, with a view to informing development policies and relevant reports, where appropriate;

Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that United Nations country teams continue to further integrate and mainstream culture into their programming exercises, in particular United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks, in consultation with relevant national authorities, when assisting countries in the pursuit of their development objectives;

Encourages all countries, intergovernmental bodies, organizations of the United Nations system, relevant non-governmental organizations and all other relevant stakeholders to give due consideration to the contribution of culture to the achievement of sustainable development in the formulation of national, regional and international development policies and international cooperation instruments;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its seventy-second session a report on the implementation of the present resolution, and decides to include, under the item entitled “Globalization and interdependence”, the sub-item entitled “Culture and sustainable development” in the provisional agenda of its seventy-second session, unless otherwise agreed in the discussions on the revitalization of the Second Committee.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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