Since the founding Congress of Paris, culture has been at the heart of UCLG's policy agenda.

Since 2015, UCLG has convened three editions of the UCLG Culture Summit, which were respectively hosted by the City of Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain, March 2015), the Jeju Self-Governing Special Province (Jeju-do, Republic of Korea, May 2017), and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (Argentina, April 2019). Following the success of the three first Culture Summit of UCLG, and considering the growing importance of culture in the framework of sustainable cities, the Executive Bureau of UCLG has decided to convene a fourth UCLG Culture Summit in 2021.

The UCLG Culture Summit is a unique global event. It responds to the growing importance of culture in local development, a fact that is being evidenced in all continents, at least since the beginning of the 21st century. The Summit is the meeting point of cities, local governments, national governments, civil society organizations and international organizations to discuss the current position of culture in the global agendas. Participants to the Summit are very committed to the successful implementation of policies and programmes on culture and sustainability.

The Summit send very strong messages on the role of culture in development and provides a remarkable international visibility to the city / region / local government that hosts the event. The programme of the Summit, to be elaborated between the UCLG Committee on culture and the host city, will emphasise that culture is an integral part of sustainable cities, and will promote the sharing of experiences and innovations from cities across the world.

The Committee on Culture of UCLG has officially launched an open call to all UCLG city and local governments members who wish to host the next edition of the Summit.

Terms of Reference for the organization of the Summit are now available.

The deadline for submitting a candidacy to host the Summit is set on 15 October 2019.

On next 11-13 July 2019, the Directorate-Regional for Culture of the Centre of Portugal is organising an international conference on "Culture, Territory and Development" with the aim to promote a broad discussion on the role of culture in regards to the development of territories, within the context of the upcoming competition in Portugal to select the European Capital of Culture 2027 (ECoC).

The conference aims at sharing perspectives for the territory on an international scale, placing culture at the centre of the debate. The following themes will be addressed:
       - Cultural policies at local and regional level;
       - Strategies and visions for the development of cities;
       - Audience development and participatory engagement;
       - European dimension and internationalisation of territories;
       - The impact and sustainability of cultural policies.

The conference will take place in Igreja de Idanha-a-Velha from 11 to 13 July 2019.

More info available here.

This year, at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, the European Commission launched the first edition of the “Women on the Move” day.

To mark this, Creative Europe has collated information and good practice on gender parity from industry and policy makers in the EU, and published an overview of them into this brochure.

More information here.

The five year National Local Government Cultural Forum has been brought to a close with the release of the final report 2018. The cultural forum brought together cultural policy and practice managers from across Australian jurisdictions and was the first time that policy and practice in this field had come together. The Forum acted as a clearing house for CDN's research and the development of the planning and evaluation frameworks. This report summarises the activities of the Forum, key research and outputs of the initiative as well as evaluation from the Cultural Forum members.

More information here.

This year, the annual conference of Culture Action Europe (CAE), Beyond the Obvious, will be held in Koblenz, Germany, from 23-26 October 2019.

Entitled "Culture Crops: cultural practices in non-urban territories", the meeting will aim at sparking the debate on peripheral territories, througout three conceptual blocks:

       1. Dynamic & Organisation: How does cultural work in peripheral territories take place and how is
           it organised?

       2. Urban-Rural Discrepancies: What is the difference between urban visions of the rural and what
           the rural is today?

       3- Blurred Borderlines: Where does the rural begin and where does it end?

Culture Crops will be the conference on the road. various thematic itineraries will be proposed to the participants in order to experience the diversity of models of practice present in the region. These visits will include facilitated debate and exchange between similar practices from other parts of Europe and offer an opportunity for learning and peer-to-peer exchange.

The conference will also feature high level keynote speeches and panel discussions, as well as capacity-buildging workshops and a project agora.

More info: https://www.cae-bto.org/

Voices of Culture is the European Commission's platform aiming at structuring a regular dialogue with civil society in order to respond to three strategic objectives, namely the promotion of cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue, the promotion of culture as a catalyst for creativity and the promotion of culture as a vital element in the Union’s international relations.

Voices of Culture recently launched a call for contributions for the topic Gender Equality: "Gender balance in Cultural and Creative Sectors", which will lead to a Brainstorming Session (4-5 September 2019, Pragues, Czech Republic) as well as a Dialogue Meeting (5-6 November 2016, Brussels, Belgium), representing the opportunity for a group of around 35 European civil society stakeholders in the cultural sector to exchange ideas on this topic and to present these to the European Commission. The group will brainstorm in September 2019 in Prague, and then discuss the main ideas (to be summarised in a Brainstorming Report) with representatives of the European Commission at a Dialogue Meeting in Brussels in November 2019.

The call is open to representatives of the cultural and creative sectors (professional organisations, cultural institutions, non-governmental organisations, European networks, foundations, private organisations, etc.) with relevant expertise on the topic “Gender Equality: Gender Balance in Cultural and Creative Sectors”, who would like to contribute to discussions with the European Commission.

Organisations applying must be from one of the 28 EU Member States, and apply before 14 June 2019 at last.

More info: http://voicesofculture.eu/2019/05/20/call-for-applications-for-the-topic...

On next 11 June 2019, UCLG together with UITP, and in cooperation with Creative Mobilities and UCLG Committee on Culture, will organise a side-event on "Mobility & culture cluster: a city for all".

This session will happen in the context of the UITP Global Public Transport Summit, taking place from 9-12 June 2019 in Stockholm. The session will discuss new strategic partnerships involving local and public authorities, private stakeholders and citizens to foster social innovation, economic clusters, and human centered sustainable development, with a specific focus on culture and creativity. Partners will present a common agenda and actions to promote the active cooperation between cities, public and local authorities leaders, mobility stakeholders, researchers and citizens through multi-stakeholders pilot projects and clusters.

WHAT  ‖  "Mobility & culture cluster: a city for all" side-event
WHEN  ‖   11 June 2019, 12:45-1:30pm
WHERE  ‖   UITP Stand, Stockholmsmässan, Stockholm, Sweden

More information here.

Following the Call to Action launched at the EDD 2018, the eight convening organisations and their associated partners will invite relevant stakeholders from the cultural sector and other fields (education, health, business, territorial development,...) to reinforce cross-sectorial dialogue and collaboration.

The objective of the brainstorming session is to follow up projects involving holistic, human-centered approaches.

The session, called "Promote gender equality through culture and creativity. Fostering synergies between the creative and gender related strategies to reduce inequilities and for peaceful societies" will take place in the context of the European Development Days 2019 in Brussels, Belgium, on next 18 June 2019, from 10.00am to 11.15am.

More information here.

On next June 3, 2019, in the framework of the Sustainable Development 2019 Festival, an international gathering will be organized in Rome and will bring together academics, political representatives and civil society at Palazzo delle Esposizoni. 

The aim: to reflect together on how cultural participation contributes to the development of sustainable societies. Starting from a state-of-the-art discussion with a focus on current and future challenges, four international case studies on practices that assess the impact of cultural experiences will be presented. Among them, the innovative analysis recently carried out by Roma Capitale.

The session will be closed by “mirroring reflections and reactions”, insights offered by members of civil society and participants from the audience.

More information on the gathering here.

In next November 2019, UCLG will hold its triennal Congress in Durban, South Africa, under the title "Local Action For and By the People".

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SAVE THE DATE!
11-15 NOVEMBER 2019
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More info available on www.durban2019.uclg.org/en/