Executive Director, Sarah Gardner, and African Coordinator, Ayeta Anne Wangusa, participated as ‘international experts’ in the first meeting of the Expert Facility for the Implementation of the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions held in Casablanca, Morocco, on 18 - 19 May 2015.
The meeting of the renewed UNESCO expert Facility, held with the support of the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), was opened by Michael Millward, Director of the UNESCO Regional Office in Rabat, and Danielle Cliche, Chief of the Section for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and Secretary of the 2005 Convention.
Established in 2001 in the context of a European Union funded project on “Strengthening the System of Governance for Culture in Developing Countries”, this new Facility was renewed and expanded, as a result of an international call launched in February 2015, and comprises now 43 international high level experts from various geographical backgrounds and areas of expertise.
The purpose of the meeting was to share a common knowledge and understanding of the overall capacity-building strategy, projects, tools and methodology regarding the 2005 Convention, and to discuss, more specifically the implementation of the project entitled “Enhancing fundamental freedoms though the promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions”, to be implemented with the support of Sida in 12 countries: Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Colombia, Cuba, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. Representatives from all relevant UNESCO Field Offices in Dakar, Phnom Penh, Quito, Havana, Addis Ababa, Djakarta, Rabat, Nairobi, Hanoi and Harare participated in the meeting.
The project will support during the 2015-2017 period capacity development interventions on policy monitoring, information and data collection and indicator-building in beneficiary countries, and the production of two biennial Global Monitoring Reports (2015, 2017). This will help to raise awareness of the Convention, provide support to Parties in their efforts to engage in evidence based, transparent and participatory policy making at the country level, and monitor policies and measures to promote the diversity of cultural expressions at the global level.
Against this background, the meeting served to present new supporting materials that are being currently finalized by Facility experts and the Secretariat for a training Module on “Monitoring and Reporting”, as well as to discuss main challenges in delivering future capacity-development interventions.
More news on the facility and the Convention is available at UNESCO’s website
- ‘First meeting of the 2005 Convention’s international Expert Facility’ http://en.unesco.org/creativity/node/8681
- ‘43 international experts join UNESCO’s Expert Facility for the implementation of the 2005 Convention’ http://en.unesco.org/creativity/node/8159
- IFACCA’s topic page on the 2005 Convention is here http://www.ifacca.org/topic/convention-cultural-diversity/