Europa Nostra participates in the regional consultation for MONDIACULT 2025
UNESCO’s World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development – MONDIACULT 2025 will be held in Barcelona between 29 September and 1 October. The Spanish Ministry of Culture, alongside the Instituto Cervantes, organised one of the six regional consultations in preparation for the conference. The Vice-Minister of Culture of the Kingdom of Spain, Jordi Marti Grau, and UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Culture, Ernesto Ottone-Ramirez, hosted the meeting, which took place between 21 and 22 November 2024 both in Madrid and online. Cristina Loglio, Vice-President of Europa Nostra, participated in the meeting with an intervention focusing on the post-2030 Agenda.
The Park Guell in Barcelona was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1984. Photo credits: Georgios Tsichlis / Shutterstock
Representatives of 23 countries from Western Europe and North America States (including 14 Member States of the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States), participated in the consultation. Civil society partners were invited to submit their views, therefore, nine international organisations – including Europa Nostra – attended the meeting.
Cristina Loglio, Vice-President of Europa Nostra, applauded the recognition given to civil society for their advocacy efforts and stressed the strategic importance of cultural heritage as an instrument of peace, dialogue and sustainable development, underlining the urgency of multilateral actions. She highlighted Europa Nostra’s commitment and contributions towards inclusive policies for culture and sustainable development in various international fora, most notably the European Union.
This week we followed the 1st online regional consultation in prep for #Mondiacult2025, on Western Europe & North America. On #SDGs, our VP Cristina Loglio 💬 “A quality leap can only be achieved on a global level w/the creation of a stand-alone goal in the #UN post 2030 Agenda” pic.twitter.com/qDZZnDsdOT
— Europa Nostra (@europanostra) November 22, 2024
The Vice-President of Europa Nostra stressed that the recognition of Culture as a stand-alone goal in the post-2030 Agenda would be fundamental to achieve sustainable development as Culture is a critical mediator and enabler shaping behaviours and attitudes. Among the participants in the meeting, there was widespread support for Culture as a stand-alone goal.
Over two days, in five thematic sessions, participants shared significant progress achieved in national cultural policies in relation to digitisation, environmental challenges, educational opportunities, the economy and emerging geopolitical crises. The interventions of representatives from Spain, Belgium and Switzerland were particularly rich in content.
UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Culture, Ottone-Ramirez, described the preparatory steps for the adoption of the post-2030 Agenda. Following a possible favorable vote at MONDIALCULT 2025 for the inclusion of Culture as a stand-alone goal in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UNESCO can pivot its pre-planned Conferences, so that the recommendations feature more explicitly the links between the social, climate, educational, economic and youth dimensions.
Organisers announced that the regional consultations will be completed by March 2025. The Chairs of each consultation session will convene in a final meeting before conveying the insights derived from these regional consultations to UNESCO. In parallel, UNESCO plans to consult accredited NGOs as well as artists in order to collect bottom-up feedback and better integrate the sector´s needs to the conference programme.
