Integration of culture in sustainable development

Abstract

The concept of sustainability, or sustainable development, was one of the key ideas motivating the evolution of thinking during the 1990s about the possibilities for a new international instrument in the area of culture. Interest in sustainability was especially relevant to developing countries. It was becoming increasingly clear that the pre-eminence of industrialized countries in determining the way the global economy works and their domination of markets for cultural goods and services was exacerbating the economic and cultural disadvantage suffered by poorer countries. These problems were clearly related to trade and globalization issues; the impacts both of liberalization of trade in cultural goods and of globalization processes more generally were being felt in the developing world with particular severity. Cultural exports from developing countries were being swallowed up in the global market place, while at the same time these countries had few resources to protect their own cultural diversity from the penetration of cultural influences originating beyond their borders. These concerns were exacerbated in low-income countries by the generally slow pace of economic development and by the failure of development strategies to come to grips with the underlying problems that were holding back economic, social and cultural growth. In these circumstances it was thought that some form of international agreement on culture and development could be one way of identifying the specific needs of these countries and of proposing remedies.