Principality of Monaco represented at MONDIACULT 2022 in Mexico

Mondiacult 2022 1 ©DR

H.E. Ambassador Anne-Marie Boisbouvier, Monaco’s Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, represented the Principality at MONDIACULT 2022, the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development, held from 28 to 30 September 2022 in Mexico City (Mexico).

She was accompanied on the trip by Counsellor Séverine Dusaintpère.

The conference was convened by UNESCO’s Director-General, 40 years after the first MONDIACULT conference, which was also held in Mexico in 1982, and during which the issue of intangible world heritage emerged.

This was followed by the 1998 Stockholm Conference, which helped to drive further progress on the design and architecture of cultural policies.

In light of the radical transformation in the cultural sector in the past few decades, as well as recent difficulties surrounding the impact of the COVID crisis, the challenge for MONDIACULT 2022 was to take a fresh look at the cultural policies that are required to build a stronger, more resilient cultural sector, rooted in opportunities for sustainable development.

As Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO’s Director-General, said in her opening address, the aim of this year’s conference was to “allow culture to rediscover its rightful place”. After all, culture represents “the backbone that allows social bonds to be created” particularly during times of crisis such as those we have experienced, and “brings us together in the things that create the foundation for our humanity at the deepest level”. Culture is also an important, economically growing sector but, since “cultural assets are not the same as other assets”, they call for specific and ambitious cultural policies.

Mondiacult 2022 2 ©DR

Some 2,600 people, including 135 ministers, took part in MONDIACULT 2022, and had the opportunity to engage in discussions over the course of two plenary sessions, four themed sessions (including on “heritage and cultural diversity in crisis” and “culture for sustainable development) and numerous side events.

A final declaration, the product of ten months of multilateral negotiations led by UNESCO, was adopted to recognise culture as a “global public good”, adapt cultural policies to contemporary challenges and stress the importance of integrating cultural heritage and creativity into international discussions on climate change.

The declaration also emphasised the commitment to fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural property and, with this in mind, called for an open and inclusive international dialogue for the return and restitution of cultural property to countries of origin. Finally, the States used the declaration to request that UNESCO convene a World Forum on Cultural Policies (every four years) and implement the agreed strategic lines of work, including the production of a report on cultural policies.

Mondiacult 2022 3 ©UNESCO-Carlos Villavicencio