Since April 2008, the project AECID-INC “Peru Culture and Development 2008”, has been working with eight work groups made up of people committed to the different areas of culture: 1) Cultural heritage, museums and spaces. Heritage and knowledge presentation; 2) Content and sense production (Film, audiovisual and broadcasting); 3) Music; 4) Plastic and visual arts; 5) Performing arts; 6) Live cultures: peoples, practices and intangible heritage; 7) Entertainment and sociocultural participation; 8) Reading, literature and publishing industry.
These eight groups have had a proactive outlook on the country’s cultural future, have searched for consensus and have proposed concrete actions. More than 100 people interested in rethinking the policies needed to promote cultural activities have been mobilized. Each group wrote a document that summarizes the exchanges of ideas that has taken place.
These documents were discussed in October and November 2008 in public and open meetings that took place in Lima, Chiclayo, Tacna, Tarapoto and Huancayo. Anyone who was interested was able to participate in these meetings. Any citizen or cultural organization interested in exchanging ideas with these eight groups was free to do so.
These contributions will be incorporated in a draft document that will serve as a guideline for the debate that will take place on December 3-5, 2008 in Peru’s First National Cultural Policy Congress.
The Congress’ objectives are:
1. To strengthen Peru’s cultural institutions in the areas of public policy, the fabric of civil institutions, and industry, understood as a field for creators and cultural administrators.
2. To offer a stable meeting venue for culture agents for dialogue, reflection, experience dissemination and exchange, and cooperation between sectors, public administration, professionals, cultural industries and the so-called Third Sector.
3. To encourage the development of culture as an interconnected system in which different administrations and public and private agents should participate, and in which relations should be established with other public policy sectors, with the economic sector and the social debate.
4. To promote culture’s role in the country’s economic, social and territorial development. Special consideration will be given to the sector’s potential: creative economy, cultural tourism, cultural industries, competitiveness, innovation and value creation capacity.
5. To develop culture’s participation in a national project of coexistence and development based in the acknowledgement of cultural diversity as a factor for wealth creation and social cohesion in Peru.
You can find more information, in Spanish, in the Congress’ Official Web Site: www.congresopoliticaculturalperu.org.
http://www.gestioncultural.org/gc/event/detailEvent.jsp?_idSection=57832&idEvent=204079