NGOs and Civil Society

As part of the Cultural and Creative Industries project, the Goethe-Institut and  Africa Beyond 4IR (AB4IR), a non-profit organisation that aims to bridge the digital and gender gaps in access to technology in South African townships, co-developed Drone Divas. The four-to-six-week Drone Divas  training is a very successful collaboration between the training organisation and the private sector as internships form an integral part of the programme.

What does it mean to be a creative entrepreneur and how can you establish yourself in the market as a creator? The perFORM Music Incubator is a music business and artist development project in Kenya initiated as part of the project  Cultural and Creative Industries to support music creators in building sustainable careers.

From dance to puppetry, museums to festivals, indigenous creators to intangible heritage practitioners, thousands of individuals and organizations joined the movement to make their voices heard. Over 350 ResiliArt roundtables were organized in less than two and a half years, providing UNE-SCO with an unprecedented number of first-hand accounts of what it means to be a creator today and pointing towards the necessary transformations to ensure a more sustain-able sector.

The overall economic impact, social role and status of cultural professionals involved in the film industries of the Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) remain relatively understudied. However, the film industry is recognized as one of the oldest and most developed cultural and creative industries of the region since the mid 20th century. In this context, this publication assesses the film industries of Central Asia and concerned legislation.

The EU/UNESCO programme ‘Supporting new regulatory frameworks to strengthen the cultural and creative industries and promote South‑South cooperation’, implemented in 12 UNESCO Member States between 2018 and 2022, leveraged peer‑to‑peer learning as an innovative and effective way to create, strengthen and update policies and regulatory frameworks that support creativity, while promoting diplomatic and cultural exchanges between peers. This toolkit captures the success of the programme.

The cultural organizations and events considered in this policy brief are those whose mission and activities are aimed at disseminating and broadening access to a diversity of cultural expressions. They include, among others, cultural centres, festivals, book fairs, bookshops and libraries, theatres, cinemas, performance venues, broadcasters, and online cultural platforms.

This report focuses on the needs of civil society, the main challenges facing the cultural sectors in the region such as artistic freedom, dialogue with governments, gender equality, cultural policies and the treatment of culture in trade agreements. Due to the vastness of the Asia-Pacific region and the time allotted for the study, not all countries and regions in AsiaPacific are represented in this report. While some challenges and needs may be recurrent in a majority of countries, most are specific to local contexts and particular histories.

This ‘Culture and the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Challenges and Opportunities’ report results from brainstorming sessions organised as a Voices of Culture Structured Dialogue.  The Structured Dialogue framework enables communication between the European Commission and the cultural sector. Its main objective is to provide a channel for the voice of the cultural sector to be heard by EU policymakers, a voice represented by a group of expert practitioners in Europe selected through an open call.

The report contains six in-depth country profiles, where specific data and strategic analyses help present the voiced concerns and hopes of stakeholders on the ground. The country profiles are followed by extensive recommendations for Covid-19 response actions organized around the themes of Space, Community, Training and Funding. Both chapters give attention to non-Western expertise on the cultural and creative industries’ needs as well as their stakeholders’ aspirations for development and, thus, broaden the perspectives for more effective and holistic problem solving. 

The cultural and creative industries are among the most rapidly growing economic sectors. They generate almost 50 million jobs worldwide and offer employment for women and youth. Apart from their economic value, CCIs create identity, bring people into dialogue, and contribute to democracy. To nurture this potential, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) launched a supra-regional project that focuses on cultural and creative work as a vehicle for sustainable development.