Background

Following 12 months of preparatory meetings and development work, WorldCP  was launched in 2011 at IFACCA’s World Summit on Arts and Culture in Melbourne, Australia. Its aim was to be a central, web-based and continuously updated database of country-specific profiles of policies that relate to culture. Modelled on the highly regarded Compendium of Cultural Policies in Europe, it aimed to provide the capacity to monitor and analyse global trends in key aspects of cultural policies. The opportunity for IFACCA to initiate WorldCP was thanks to the decade-long work of the experts at ERICarts and the Council of Europe and their generosity in sharing it with the rest of the world. Together they had created the Compendium, its information grid, website, and the various methodologies and networks that underpinned it.

In the six years since the launch, working together with multiple partners, we were able to publish thirteen country profiles and initiate work on several other profiles. We also created a complete mirror site of worldcp.org in Spanish in 2014. The WorldCP project also engendered many opportunities for discussion with government agencies and international organisations about the value of cultural policy analysis and it helped to initiate cultural policy debates both within and between countries. In some cases, WorldCP prompted the first-ever collection and/or publication of information on national cultural policies in a structured way. From one of our surveys of authors, it was clearly apparent that the process had allowed them to make a more objective evaluation of national cultural policies and create a comprehensive picture of the interconnections of cultural policies. Several forums and public meetings were held thanks to WorldCP (particularly in Asia), as well as capacity-building sessions to help researchers in developing the profiles – always with the involvement of Compendium experts from Europe. Key milestones in WorldCP’s development are listed here.

Our partners

WorldCP also resulted in several successful and enriching partnerships. It was a great pleasure for IFACCA to work with all the authors and editors, and with our colleagues representing our formal partners: Asia-Europe Foundation, European Culture Foundation, Al Mawred al Thaqafy, and Ettijahat, as well of course with EricArts and the Council of Europe. We also appreciated our discussions with potential partners in other regions: the OEI (Organization of IberoAmerican States for Education, Culture and Science), Arterial Network, and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. 

Plans for 2017

In 2015-16, we followed with interest the discussions about the future of the Compendium of Cultural Policies in Europe and look forward to the next stages of its evolution. We hope that the other regionally-based cultural policy projects will also continue to evolve and remain open to ongoing discussions about their development.

However, due to our focus on other strategic projects and services as well as competing demands for our resources, both financial and human, we have decided to conclude IFACCA’s involvement and close the WorldCP website later in 2017.  Instead, we will continue to build on the development of our Cultural Policy Quick Facts and the portals of Themes and Places on the IFACCA website. We will also continue to work with our partners on other projects.

While the Compendium and other regional projects are in a period of transition, we will keep the WorldCP website online for the next few months. However, there will be no further changes made to the content and the profiles.   

Congratulations and thanks to all

We would like to acknowledge the work of all the authors, editors and regional coordinators for what was achieved with WorldCP. We would especially like to thank Anupama Sekhar (and the rest of the ASEF team), Anmol Vellani, Rana Yazaji, Abdullah Alkafri, Philip Dietachmair, Tsveta Andreeva, Kathrin Merkle, Ritva Mitchell, Oliver Göbel and of course, Andreas Wiesand, and the many other European authors, for their contribution and partnership in this project. We also valued the advice of Jörg Torkler in adapting the Compendium database for international use and developing the website for WorldCP. Finally, I thank IFACCA staff Annamari Laaksonen and Natasha Eves for their input to the project over many years.

Sarah Gardner
Executive Director 
International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies