The National Plan for Culture (PNC) was approved, unanimously, last Tuesday, November 9, by the Federal Senate’s Education, Culture and Sports Commission and is now awaiting Presidential sanction. Once it is signed, the Ministério da Cultura will have 180 days to establish the goals that the plan’s implementation should achieve.
The plan was requested by civil society through the 1st and 2nd National Conferences on Culture and it was a joint effort of the Ministério da Cultura and the National Congress. It represents a step forward for culture in Brazil because it establishes the guidelines of its cultural policy for the next 10 years.
“The approval of the PNC is a great victory, first, because it institutionalizes the progress made during the last few years by the federal government in the field of culture and, secondly, because it guarantees the continuity of cultural policies in Brazil”, remarked the minister of culture, Juca Ferreira.
The senator Marisa Serrano, reporter of the project, affirmed that the Legislative must give continuity to the projects in favour of Brazilian culture so that the guidelines established in the PNC are effective within the sector’s regulatory framework: “The PNC will serve as starting point for a group of cultural policies that will be constructed”.
What is the PNC?
The PNC is the first state long-term plan for culture in Brazil’s history. The Constitutional Ammendment nº 48, year 2005, establishes that the Plan should be presented as a bill.
The priorities and concepts traced out constitute a group of shared collective resources that will guide the public policies on culture for the next ten years, including its goals.
Its text was perfected through 27 seminars that took place in every unit of the federation and made part of an agreement between the Ministério da Cultura and the Chamber’s Education and Culture Commission.
The 13 principles of the PNC
- Freedom of expression, creation and enjoyment
- Cultural diversity
- Respect of human rights
- Everyone’s right to art and culture
- Right to information, communication and cultural critique
- Right to memory and traditions
- Social and environmental responsibility
- Culture as a vector of sustainable development
- Democratization of the formulation of cultural policies
- Public agents’ responsibility in the implementation of cultural policies
- Collaboration between public and private agents to develop the economy of culture
- Participation and social control in the formulation of cultural policies and follow-up
The Federal Government will have 180 days to define the goals that should be achieved in order to meet the objectives. These will be measured by the National Information and Cultural Indicators System (SNIIC) which is already being established in the Ministério da Cultura. The regions and municipalities interested in adhering to the PNC will have to write their ten-year plan in 180 days. They will be assisted by the Ministério da Cultura. Its content will also be developed in plans for each sector.
http://www.cultura.gov.br/site/2010/11/09/um-plano-para-a-cultura/