Ramallah. “Living Heritage for a Resilient Future” is a long-term municipal policy that aims to safeguard and activate cultural heritage as a living urban resource. Facing a context of ongoing occupation, this citywide initiative reflects the city’s strategic commitment to preserve, revitalize, document and make accessible cultural heritage as a core element of identity, memory, belonging and social cohesion. The initiative brings together local communities, cultural practitioners, educational institutions and national stakeholders, to put in place targeted interventions, including local protection legislations, inclusive annual awareness programmes, and the preservation of the city’s archives and museum. The Jury highlighted this initiative as a remarkable example of a wide and solid local policy based on cultural rights and with a gender perspective that values and ensures continuity of collective memory and heritage across generations.

São Paulo. “VAI Program (Valorization of Cultural Initiatives)” is an initiative that recognizes young people as creators and producers of actions relevant to society, across a wide variety of artistic and cultural expressions. VAI Program provides financial support for artistic and cultural activities, primarily those developed by low-income youth from areas lacking resources and cultural facilities in the city of São Paulo. It is based on the acknowledgement of culture as a fundamental right, and on the understanding that it is the responsibility of the public sector to promote and encourage such practices, especially in the city’s peripheral areas. The Jury emphasizes the positive impact that this initiative has had over the years, including the promotion of civic participation of youth in the implementation and evaluation of cultural policies, and its recognition as an important public tool for social inclusion and gender equality.

GWANAK-GU (REPUBLIC OF KOREA)

“Capital of Youth Culture” aims to actively engage youth in the local community and public policy processes, and to enhance cultural rights of young people who have been socially excluded. With the country’s highest ratio of youth population, Gwanak-gu responds to local challenges such as youth alienation, as well as addressing mental health and suicide in the city. More specifically, this initiative brings young people into a renewed system of collaborative governance in which they can participate in the design and implementation of policies, for example through the Youth Policy Committee or the Youth Network and Public Forum programmes. Gwanak-gu also launched a youth culture project and created many spaces to support the formation of youth communities and artistic initiatives. The Jury identified this project as an excellent initiative addressing a very concrete problem, and highlighted the articulation achieved between policy, place and future, as well as its impacts: increasing the youth employment rate and becoming the area with the second largest population of young artists in the country.

LA PAZ (BOLIVIA)

“‘Traditional Medicine Information and Guidance Centres - Qullañ Uta” is an intercultural health project that intertwines cultures with the care of life. The project seeks to influence the quality of the intercultural health system in the Municipality of La Paz, and promote the incorporation of knowledge and practices of traditional medicine among the population of the Municipality. The "Qullañ Uta" Centres are cultural spaces located in different areas of La Paz that provide information, guidance and care services in traditional medicine. In this endeavour, attention is paid to the use of native languages, as well as to the promotion of intercultural dialogue and training for the exchange of knowledge on traditional medicine with local inhabitants. The Jury highlighted that it constituted an inspiring municipal initiative around indigenous knowledge that rescued traditional medicine, and commended its potential for replicability given its modest budget.

BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)

The project “Abasto cultural neighbourhood: economic boost and urban regeneration” is promoted by the Ministry of Culture of the City of Buenos Aires since 2019. It is an urban regeneration project based on the transformation of public space, drawing on a model of participatory governance of culture that promotes the collective creation of identity and social integration, enhancing the activity of the independent cultural spaces that distinguish the Abasto neighbourhood. The project has invested in infrastructure, leading to improvements in the public space such as increasing pedestrian accessibility and enhancing the quality of life of neighbours. It has also promoted the cocreation with the communities, allowing the implementation of a participatory governance model in which public space is understood as a stage and platform for cultural activities, and it has relied on the value of local cultural industries, boosting the reflection and shared construction of the tangible and intangible identity features of the communities as driving forces for social integration. Impacts include a better articulation of the cultural supply of the neighbourhood and its relationship with cultural space, the reduction of inequalities within the community and the enhancement of the diversity of local cultural expressions.

See the summary of Buenos Aires's project "Abasto Cultural neighbourhood: Economic boost and urban regeneration".  

See the article on Buenos Aires's "Abasto Cultural neighbourhood: Economic boost and urban regeneration" project. 

DUBLIN (IRELAND)

"'AWE' - Cultural Engagement through Accessibility, Wellbeing and Evidence" was initiated by Dublin City Council Culture Company in April 2020 as a sustainable response to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. 'AWE' was envisioned as a strategy to protect the cultural rights of Dublin's citizens, and to actively engage with them and respond culturally to their needs, through 3 main strands: (a) Accessibility, (b) Wellbeing, (c) Evidence. The Culture Company, established in 2018 with the mission to engage with people and communities through conversation and culture, increasing cultural participation and practice throughout the city's neighbourhood, continued their engagement work with community groups, youth leaders, artists, partners from the local authority, residential care homes, businesses and national cultural institutions. Through listening, responsive actions to improve accessibility, inclusion and create more ways into culture during the pandemic were created. 'AWE' has actively demonstrated the success, transferability and adaptability of an original methodology that not only ensured the cultural rights of citizens during the pandemic and beyond, but also undertook extensive research that could be considered as a benchmark for other cities.

See the summary of Dublin's initiative "'AWE' - Cultural engagement through accessibilitym wellbeing and evidence". 

See the article on Dublin's "AWE: Cultural engagement through accessibility, wellbeing and evidence" initiative.

The project “Ségou: A Creative City” started in 2015 as an initiative by the Festival on the Niger Foundation. In partnership with the municipality of Ségou, the initiative has provided the city with a sound cultural policy focused on sustainable development. The implication and commitment of all cultural actors together with the local government and civil society in the implementation process of this solid initiative has helped unfold its main objectives, providing access for everyone to culture and enhancing the value of Ségou’s cultural identities -music,
design and fashion, visual arts, heritage and gastronomy- and artistic and cultural creation, by putting art and culture at the centre of local development. “Ségou: A Creative City” has contributed to professionalize the cultural sector as well, improving the working conditions of cultural and creative actors and creating synergies among cultural organisations, stakeholders and citizens. Furthermore, “Ségou: A Creative City” constitutes a suitable framework for collaboration with other African cities, and promotes the implementation of projects based on co-creation, co-production, exchange of experiences and sharing of good practices.

The Network of Arts and Cultural Practices was created 24 years ago in Medellín, involving different artistic and cultural groups and organizations. The aim of the programme is to guarantee cultural rights for children, adolescents and youth. This community-oriented initiative supports more than 7,800 children and youth in the 16 communes and 5 townships of Medellín every year, providing them with opportunities for expression, exchange, learning, experimentation and enjoyment with a wide range of artistic, aesthetic, and cultural forms, including dance, performing arts, fine and visual arts, music and audio-visual. With this project, public access to culture in Medellín has increased by improving cultural infrastructure throughout neighbourhoods, setting up cultural training opportunities, and promoting specific programmes and offers for disadvantaged groups, in close collaboration with other municipal plans and programmes. Over the years, the Network of Arts and Cultural Practices has contributed to promoting and reinforcing Medellín as a cultural city committed to inclusive and participatory cultural policies
aimed at enshrining cultural citizenship, sustainable development, and an improved quality of life and well-being for all inhabitants.

The Charter of Cultural Cooperation has been implemented for over 15 years in Lyon, involving 27 municipal services, cultural projects and events, including those that receive the most funding from the city, which altogether carry out over 300 projects, actions and services adapted to the challenges of policies that connect culture and sustainable development across the city. Now in its fourth edition, Lyon’s Charter of Cultural Cooperation now extends throughout the entire metropolis of Lyon, including 24 municipalities.

The programme has become a powerful tool for cultural policy. The Charter promotes the convergence of cultural policies, in specific commitments, with each of the transversal local policies that contribute to ‘making’ a sustainable city: urban balance and solidarity, citizen participation, policies for equality and non-discrimination, memories and diversities, education and knowledge exchange, energy efficiency, environmental responsibility and social innovation.

Furthermore, the programme involves a continuous process of shared reflection, information exchange, capacity-building, project design and evaluation with all stakeholders involved, at different territorial levels and on a range of regularly-evolving themes.

Check out the video elaborated by the City of Lyon in the context of the 3rd edition of the International Award UCLG - Mexico City - Culture 21.

The programme “Common Seongbuk Artist Roundtable: Local Culture Governance” began in 2014 in Seongbuk, a district of Seoul, and has become the most important community initiative in this area, involving over 300 people working together on the basis of cultural governance.

The Artist Roundtable defines itself as a network that works together for the coexistence and cooperation of the local culture. One of its objectives is the cooperative work with those responsible for the cultural policy of the city, through the Seongbuk Cultural Foundation and with the other public institutions with responsibility in the city.

The Artist Roundtable operates on the values and principles of ‘autonomous activity’ (autonomy), ‘cultural democracy’ (democracy), ‘friendship and cooperation’ (solidarity) and ‘respecting cultural differences’ (diversity). Furthermore, the initiative organises local festivals, manages cultural venues and contributes to supporting the artistic and cultural community in the area.

The programme “Cultural heritage and reinvigoration of socio-economic activities in Timbuktu” focuses on the rehabilitation of the sector and of crafts, following the recent terrorist occupation of the regions of northern Mali. This caused significant damage to cultural heritage, practices, and expressions: population displacement; destruction of innumerable historical monuments, memorial sites and ancient manuscripts; intense pillaging of archaeological sites and museums; and prohibition and weakening of cultural practices and traditions. The project associates the rehabilitation of cultural heritage with the rehabilitation of socio-economic activity, in particular of crafts. It has worked on ways of reinvigorating intangible heritage and arts and crafts, and also suggests ways of strengthening the city council’s capacities and improving local governance.

The programme “I AM… / The adventure of one community in the middle of a transformation” has been underway in Vaudreuil-Dorion since 2010, and works to promote the emergence of a united community that experiences differences as richness. Each year, 20,000 citizens take part in some 600 workshops based around 50 main activities. The goal: to create encounters which allow an understanding of others, and encourage respect for differences. Active citizen participation through cultural and creative acts is at the centre of community reinvention. Here, citizens rub shoulders, interact, and learn to understand one another. Besides working directly on social cohesion, these cultural activities contribute to solid progress in terms of environment, town planning, community bodies and their missions, physical and mental health, and business environments.

Website (in French): www.ville.vaudreuil-dorion.qc.ca

Facebook (in French): facebook.com/Je-suis-Vaudreuil-Dorion

Video (Mrs Nichols, Member of Parliament of Vaudreuil, and Mr Couillard, Premier of Quebec) : watch video

The programme “Arena da Cultura – Artistic and Cultural Training Programme” of the city of Belo Horizonte is the main project of the cultural policy of the city. Created in 1998, it is oriented toward the democratization of the cultural goods and services of the city, in order to reduce the social and territorial inequalities. The Jury emphasizes the integrality of the following elements: (a) the population: the programme is addressed to a diverse public, from 6 to 80 years of age with heterogeneous educational and socioeconomic levels; (b) the territory: the programme covers the entire city, including 16 cultural centers and 33 “BH Ciudadanía” (citizenship groups) and contributes to the significance of public spaces; (c) culture: the programme is based on a transforming artistic experience at the center of the entire process, with a careful evaluation of the work with professionals and artists as essential people for creating capacity, knowledge, skills and abilities in everyone; (d) governance: the programme has a management model which integrates public institutions and an extensive network or associated organizations, clubs and NGOs. The project provides evidence of a very positive impact on the cultural, social and territorial transformation of the city. It is a programme which perfectly applies principles and recommendations of Agenda 21 for Culture.