United Nations Resolution on Culture and Development

To read the Resolution promulgated in 2002, go to the list of Resolutions passed in 57th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and click on "A/RES/57/249" (Culture and Development).

The Resolution invites all Member States, intergovernmental bodies, organizations of the United Nations system and relevant non-governmental organizations:
(a) To ensure, in cooperation with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the implementation of the Action Plan;
(b) To implement the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace adopted by the General Assembly, respectively, in its resolutions 53/243 A and B of 13 September 1999;
(c) To implement the Programme of Action of the Global Agenda for Dialogue among Civilizations contained in section B of resolution 56/6;
(d) To implement relevant provisions on cultural diversity of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation1 and the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development;
(e) To strengthen international cooperation and solidarity in supporting national efforts of developing countries:

(i) To gain access to new technologies;
(ii) To receive help in mastering information technologies with a view to encouraging the production, safeguarding and dissemination of diversified contents in the media and global information networks, and, to that end, to promote the role of public radio and television services in the development of audio-visual productions of good quality, in particular by fostering the establishment of cooperative mechanisms to facilitate their distribution;
(iii) To establish cultural industries that are viable and competitive at the national and international levels, in the face of the current imbalance in the flow and exchange of cultural goods at the global level;

(f) To assist in the emergence or consolidation of cultural industries in the developing countries, and, to that end, to cooperate in developing the necessary infrastructures and skills, fostering the emergence of viable local markets;
(g) To acknowledge the importance of preserving and developing cultural heritage, including by encouraging the strengthening of domestic policies in the fields of protection, incentive and promotion of the various cultures, mainly the most vulnerable;
(h) To formulate policies pertaining to tangible and intangible cultural heritage, taking into account, in particular, resolution 56/8, by which the Assembly proclaimed 2002 as the United Nations Year for Cultural Heritage;
(i) To assess the interconnection between culture and development and the elimination of poverty in the context of the first United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997–2006);
(j) To raise public awareness of the value and importance of cultural diversity, and, in particular, to encourage, through education and the media, knowledge of the positive value of cultural diversity, inter alia, as regards
languages;
(k) Within the framework of the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People and based on the main lines of the Action Plan,5 to strengthen efforts towards the prioritization of the adoption of national policies that recognize the contribution of traditional knowledge, particularly with regard to environmental protection and the management of natural resources, fostering synergies between modern science and local knowledge and recognizing the traditional and direct dependence on renewable resources and ecosystems, including in the form of sustainable harvesting, that is essential to the cultural, economic and physical wellbeing of indigenous people and their communities."

The Resolution also:
"Encourages the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to continue its work to promote greater awareness of the crucial relationship between culture and development and the important role of information and communication technologies in this relationship;" and
"Encourages the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in conjunction, as appropriate, with other relevant United Nations bodies and multilateral development institutions, to continue to provide support, upon request, to developing countries, in particular as regards national capacitybuilding and access to information and communication technologies, for the implementation of international cultural conventions, including with regard to conservation of heritage and the protection of cultural property, and for the return or restitution of cultural property, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 56/97 of 14 December 2001, on the return or restitution of cultural property to the countries of origin."