A Cultural Decade

Reflections on
the World Decade
for Cultural Development
1988-1997
Maria Paola Goncalves G.

Studies and Reports of the Unit of Cultural Research and Management - No. 5
kudes et rapports de l’Unit6 de recherche et de gestion culturelles - No 5

UNESCO, CLTICICICRM,1, rue Miollis, F-75352ParisCedex 15

Tel.: +33 (0)l 4.568 44 30 - Fax:+33 (0)l 45 68 55 91 - e-mail: m.kovacs@unesco.org
 The views expressed in this document are the responsibility of
the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNESCO

CLT-98AVSl8
 For someone who once said she had handed
me a torch. I used it to light the path ahead,
and in the end saw the disorder in
what is called the established order. To someone
who has lived through my setbacks and second thoughts
and with whom I have shared so many Wednesdays.
She once said: ‘I esteem and respect you’.
To which I reply: ‘So do I, Tutor’.

Next, of course, for those who decided

one fine - though they may say fateful - day
to live together, who became the source of my existence.
My thanks to those who gave me life, so that
I can write these pages today.

For all who collaborated

on this study.
 -3-

CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION . .. . .. .. .. .. ... .... . .. . .. . .. .. . ... .. ... .. .. ..... . ... .. . .. ....... .. . .. . ._........ . .. ... .. .. . .... ... ... . . ... .. .. . .. .. . 7

CHAPTER 1 - UNSUSTAINABLE ‘DEVELOPMENT’ ... . .. ... .. . . . . . . .. . .. ... .. . ... ... .. ... . .. ... .. .. .. . . . . 9

The unchallengeable paradigm of ‘development’ . .. .. .. .. .. .... .. .. .. . .. .. . . . . . .. .. .. .. ... .....___..................9

‘Underdevelopment’: a condition to be overcome.. ............................................................... 11

‘Underdevelopment’ as a consequence of development-oriented action.. ......................... 11

The economistic approach .... .. .. . .. .. .. . .. .. .. . .. .. .. ... .... .. .. .. .... ... ... .. .. . . . . .. . . . . .. .. . ... . .. ... .... .. .. .. .... . .. .. . . 12

The ‘humanization of development’ ...................................................................................... 14

Adjectives for development ............................................................................................... 16
The Western paradigm as a conjunction of opposites.. ...................................................... 18

Humanization is followed by liberation of the economy.. ..................................................... 19

Strategies for change.. ........................................................................................................ 20
Political will.. ................................................................................................................. 20
Co-operation .................................................................................................................. 21
Participation and empowerment .................................................................................... 21

Viewing the world from a different standpoint .. .. ... . .. ...... .. .. .. ... .. . . . . . .. . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. . . .. 22

CHAPTER 2 - THE ‘DEVELOPMENT’ OF CULTURE: UNESCO’S VIEWPOINT.. . .. . . .25

The conceptual expansion of culture ..................................................................................... 25

The cultural product.. ......................................................................................................... 25
The cultural process ........................................................................................................... 26

An approach to universal culture and cultural particularity ................................................... 27

Contact as a source of conflict.. ......................................................................................... 27
Contact as a source of consensus.. ..................................................................................... 28
Global identity - particular identity.. .................................................................................. 29

Culture in relation to development ........................................................................................ 30

Culture as a supplement: balancing development .............................................................. 30
Culture as an instrument: the driving force of ‘development’ ........................................... 31

Cultural development . .. ... ... .. ... .. . .. .. . ... . .. . . .. .. ... ... ... ... . .. .... .... .. .. ... . . . . . . . .. .. ... .. .. . ... . ... ... .. . .. .. .. ... . . . . 32

From the cultural dimension of development to the developmental dimension of culture.... 34

CHAPTER 3 - THE WORLD DECADE FOR CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT .. . . .. .. .. ... . . . . 37

Brief review . . .. . . .. . ... .. .. ... .. .. .... .. .. .. . .. .. .. . .. .. ... .. .. .... ... .. . .. .... .... .. ... .. . . . .. .. . . .. . . ... .. .. .. ... . .... .. .. .... . .. .... 37

Basic guidelines for a ‘development’ strategy ....................................................................... 38

The crux of the matter: towards a new approach to development ..................................... 38
Definitions of culture and development ......................................................................... 39
 -4-

The four main objectives .................................................................................................... 40

Acknowledgement of the cultural dimension of development ...................................... 41
Affirmation and enrichment of cultural identities ......................................................... 42
Broadening of participation in culture ........................................................................... 43
Promotion of international cultural co-operation ........................................................... 45
General comments on the objectives of the Plan of Action ........................................... 45

Priority themes and fields of action established in the course of the Decade . .. .. . . .. .. . . . . . . ... . .. . 46

Strategy for the implementation of the Plan of Action .......................................................... 47

The International Programme for the World Decade for Cultural Development ............. .47
27 C/Resolution 3.2 of the General Conference ................................................................ 48
Mid-Term Summary Evaluation Report ............................................................................ 48
Fields of action for the final biennium ............................................................................... 49
World Day for Cultural Development ................................................................................ 49
General comments .............................................................................................................. 50

Development strategy ............................................................................................................. 51

The new paradigm .......................................................................................................... 52

CHAPTER 4 - DECADE ACTION IN SUPPORT OF THE NEW APPROACH . . .. .. . . . .. . .. .. 53

First phase: predominance of the cultural approach .. . .. .. .. . .. . .. . . . . . .. . . . .. . .. .... ... .. .. . .. . . . .. . . . . .. .. . . ... 53

Second phase: vindication of the development-oriented approach.. .. . .. .. .. ... ... .. .. .. .. . . . .. . . . . .. .. .. 57

CHAPTER 5 - CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS .. .. . ... . .. . .. . .. . . .. . . . .. . .. ... .... ... . . . .. . . . . .. . . .. .. .. .. . 61

Rethinking development? ..... .. .. . .. . .. . . . .. . ... . .. .. .. ... ... .. .. ... .. . .. .. . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . .. ... .... ... . . .. . .. . . .. . .. . . .. . .. .. 61

From change as a process to change as a project .. .... .. . .. .. .. . .. . . .. .. . . . .. . .. .. . .... ... .. .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . . .. . .. . 62

BIBLIOGRAPHY . .. . . .. ... ..... .. .. .. . . .. . .. . . . ... . .. .. .. .. .. ... ... .. ... . ... . .. . .. . . .. .. . . . . . ... . ... .... .. .. .. . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . .. .. 63
 -5-

FOREWORD

Cultural development or culture in development? The two notions are not incompatible.
According to the definition that prevailed until the 1970s culture was the ‘sublimated’
reflection of human life, expressed chiefly through the arts. Developing culture meant
promoting literature, painting, music, dance, drama - art forms that appealed directly to human
sensibility. Protection of the ‘artistic heritage’ was likewise a key concern, and handicrafts
were promoted as a traditional expression of culture. From the 1960s onwards, however, an
awareness emerged of the need to transcend this narrow aesthetic notion of culture and to give
more weight to its anthropological dimension.

Concurrently, especially in so-called Third World countries, the fact that things were
getting worse rather than better despite major international efforts to tackle the problems of
underdevelopment set in motion a process of reflection. Development theories were
constructed. The perception grew that it was vitally important to base development on sounder
principles that incorporated a human dimension and took into account people’s innermost
thoughts and feelings and their philosophy of life.

At the ‘World Conference on Cultural Policies’ (MONDIACULT), held in Mexico

City in 1982, it was thinkers and scholars who challenged the paradigms that had prevailed in
the planning and implementation of development. They found, for example, that models
developed by technical gurus, who were entirely unfamiliar with the circumstances for which
they were intended, had been followed in many contexts and had proved a dismal failure. The
consequences were extremely harmful because this zeal for ‘progress’ undermined the social
fabric, resulting in a loss of values, undervaluing of the distinctive features of a separate
personality and the adoption of alien and alienating paradigms. In many cases, enthusiasm for
‘modernity’ led to the disappearance of unique constituents of the cultural heritage of peoples,
expressions of identity in which their historical memory was stored. It was further observed
that the urge to measure development led to the application of purely quantitative economic
parameters, an approach which ignored the fact that, where GDP (gross domestic product) or
macroeconomic indices serve as the only yardstick, the human condition is overlooked.

The MONDIACULT Conference challenged these models and stressed the need to
focus on the human being as the measure of all things. Effective development of the
individual and of society is possible only where the human being is viewed as subject and
agent, and hence as the cornerstone of development. Real solutions to the problems besetting
humankind call for recognition of its diversity and originality. As culture is the most authentic
expression of human experience, its essential characteristics must be taken into account if the
planning and implementation of development are to prove successful.

Acting on proposals by the Member States which took part in the World Conference on
Cultural Policies in Mexico City, the United Nations General Assembly approved the
proclamation of a ‘World Decade for Cultural Development’ as a period for self-analysis
during which countries would engage in a process of reflection, adopt policies and undertake
activities designed to ensure the integrated development of their societies. The Decade began
in 1988 and ended in 1997.

Maria Paola Goncalves reviews the significance of the World Decade for Cultural
Development. She skilfully analyses the evolution, fluctuations and different interpretations of
the term ‘culture’, and goes on to explore existing theories of development. Looking back at
the successes and failures of the past ten years, she examines the Decade’s impact on
 -6-

attitudes. In that context, she highlights UNESCO’s vital role and its vigorous action to
incorporate a cultural dimension in development, making it more humane and universal, a
dimension based essentially on justice as a cornerstone of the peace-building process.

UNESCO has accomplished the task assigned to it by the United Nations General
Assembly of promoting the World Decade for Cultural Development in the United Nations
system and in its Member States. It has done so by broadening the definition of and the
practical approach to development. As an ‘intellectual forum’, a ‘watchtower’ and a
‘trailblazer’, UNESCO has championed the need to provide for a cultural dimension, thereby
anticipating the concepts of human development and sustainable development, which
basically reflect the notion of all-round development of human beings in harmony with nature
and their environment. Henceforward, development will no longer consist solely in improving
economic indicators but also in promoting well-being in terms of life expectancy, access to
education, health and recreation, participation in social life, democracy-building and peace.

Maria Paola Goncalves skilfully analyses achievements and setbacks in the process of
integrating the cultural dimension into development projects.

The World Decade for Cultural Development presented states with a fundamental
challenge: that of mobilizing the potential of all sectors of society for the development of a
long-term dynamic cultural project which would guarantee the continuity of activities
designed to enhance the quality of life and the material and spiritual welfare of the individual.
The fact that ten years have flown by and that very few countries have made the necessary
changes is not a sufficient reason to reject the challenge. Both development and culture are in
a continual state of dynamic flux. The Report of the World Commission on Culture and
Development, Our Creative Diversity, produced by an independent Commission chaired by
Mr Xavier Perez de Cuellar, whose purpose was to evaluate the World Decade, constituted
one of its major achievements, reflecting a more serious approach to the task of reasserting the
values of Humanity in the face of the crisis that has marred the end of the century.

Maria Paola Goncalves opens up new avenues of investigation. Noting the persistence
of a general tendency to view the paradigm of development in narrow economic terms that
overlook the human condition, she submits that culture should be viewed not as a product
alone but ‘fundamentally as a process and ultimately as a project’, that is to say as the
tendency to strive for perfection, the urge to ‘be other’ than we are at present - not to be ‘like
others’ - and the continual search for meaning that is the source of change, anxiety and joy in
human life.

Her-r&r Crespo Toral

Principal Director, UNESCO Culture Sector
 -7-

INTRODUCTION

The World Decade for Cultural Development was officially inaugurated on 21 January
1988. The idea of proclaiming a Decade germinated at the World Conference on Cultural
Policies convened by UNESCO in 1982 and was subsequently submitted for consideration to
the United Nations General Assembly, which decided to proclaim the period 1988-1997 the
World Decade. The initiative arose out of a concern to transcend the traditional narrow
economic approach to ‘development’ projects, introducing a more human dimension which
would provide the momentum for a new wave of development in which the cultural
component would play a central role.

We shall seek in the following pages to allay our concern, and perhaps that of many
others, at the ‘modemizing’ approach that has been adopted, investigating its potential for
renewal and inquiring whether it is merely a corrective, a revised and milder version of the
narrow economic approach, or whether it is capable of bringing about a really radical change.
With this end in view, we thought it appropriate as a first step to consider briefly the question
of ‘development’ and to investigate the complex range of definitions and variables associated
with the notion of culture. We shall proceed from there to examine the guiding principles and
other parameters of the Decade and to review its implementation in the light of the new
approach.

We shall therefore begin our study with an investigation of ‘development’ as a paradigm

of Western origin and of its status as an ‘unchallengeable’ model to which all the peoples of
the world must aspire. We shall discuss in this connection the concept of ‘underdevelopment’
as a status that is incompatible with the model and hence must be overcome through economic
action. We shall take note of the emergence of a humanizing trend in response to an
awareness of the flaws inherent in narrow economic action, which in many cases exacerbates
the problems it is designed to alleviate.

We shall refer in broad outline to the above-mentioned humanizing trend in the context
of the endogenous approach set forth in UNESCO’s Medium-Term Strate,T, the concept of
‘sustainable development’, and the notion of ‘human development’ contained in the Report of
the United Nations Development Programme. We shall furthermore describe a number of
strategies designed to promote a process of ‘modemization’ and note certain misgivings that
have been expressed on the subject of the ‘unchallengeable’ paradigm.

Turning to culture, we shall consider the definitions of the concept proposed within
UNESCO, according to which it may be viewed as a product or a process. We shall also
examine the relationship between culture and ‘development’, noting the existence of a
universal culture and a specific culture, contact between which may result either in a clash or
in reconciliation. In referring to development-oriented activities with a cultural component,
we shall consider two categories, one seeing culture as a supplement and the other treating it
as a tool. The chapter ends with a brief analysis of two notions of major importance in the area
of cultural policy: ‘cultural development’ and the cultural dimension of ‘development’.

In Chapter III of our study, entitled the World Decade for Cultural Development, we
shall review the origin of the Decade, its basic purpose, the four major objectives of its Plan of
Action and the priority fields of action established in pursuance of Decade policy.

On closer scrutiny, we find two separate tendencies: one associated with traditional
activities such as artistic creativity and preservation of the heritage which we call cultural, and
 -8-

another which we ‘shall call development-oriented. The latter is the source of the material that
can be used to develop a schematic representation of the proposed ‘modemizing’ approach.

The Plan of Action of the Decade merits special attention. It is possible to draw certain
broad conclusions concerning its effectiveness, influence and achievements, the involvement
of the international community and the emphasis placed in practice on the ‘development’
approach that had been advocated. In this connection, we shall review the activities planned
for UNESCO’s five biennia (1988-1989, 1990-1991, 1992-1993, 1994-1995 and 1996-1997)
and undertake a preliminary examination of the first half of the Decade. Chapter IV is divided
into two sections on the basis of the material contained in the relevant documents: the first
phase, largely focusing on the cultural component, and the second phase, involving a shift
towards the development-oriented component.

In the light of our analysis, in both theoretical and practical terms, of the World Decade
for Cultural Development and of our discussion of the notions of culture and development, we
draw certain conclusions which are the subject of Chapter V. In that chapter we argue that,
despite a humanistic change of emphasis, the approach advocated has not been entirely free
from economic bias. We then express our conviction, presented as a matter of concern and as
food for thought, that different versions of the model must be designed and that culture must
be given the status of a project for a change of direction towards paradigms of genuine
solidarity.

These arguments ultimately challenge the whole thrust of cultural policies subordinated
to ‘development’. We trust that our concern will stimulate interest in strategies for new
projects that replace the certainty associated with what is ‘modem’ by an uncertainty
conducive to the formulation of creative proposals.
 -9-

CHAPTER 1

UNSUSTAINABLE ‘DEVELOPMENT’

The unchallengeable paradigm of ‘development’

At the close of the twentieth century, the human race glories in its many inventions,
made possible, inter alia, by the exploitation of resources drawn from an environment which
it has learned to control through science and technology. It has succeeded in reaching the
moon and in surmounting the barriers of distance by linking millions of people through the
information superhighway. We never cease to be amazed by all that humankind has achieved
through ‘development’, although we must include the imbalances and hazards that afflict the
world today and place life at risk.

The paradigm of ‘development’ continues to prevail, gaining ground by dint of the claim
that it is capable of enhancing the quality of life of the population. But in practice it is fraught
with contradictions, which have undermined the much-vaunted guarantee of well-being:

‘Sometimes technological and economic progress has itself created new problems that
did not exist previously. We are referring to what has been called the “human costs” of
development’. i

According to Brigitte Leander, these costs may be of a biological nature, resulting from
industrialization, or of a social or cultural nature, resulting from urbanization.2 The ecological
consequences of the process of industrialization have jeopardized the ecosystem, entailing
such problems as pollution, impoverishment of the soil and destruction of wildlife. Under
these circumstances, the possibility of continued ‘development’ is itself placed in jeopardy,
since the inputs that it needs are derived from resources that nature has provided.

In the social and cultural domain, mass migration to towns and cities has led to
overcrowding, an upsurge in violence, marginalization and other problems.

Moreover, although global per capita income has increased in line with the aspirations
of development-oriented action, disparities, far from disappearing, have increased at such a
pace that the gap between the richest and poorest is twice as wide as it was 30 years ago.3
Unemployment has also increased in recent years as a result of declining costs of production
as labour is replaced by technology. The obvious inference is that economic growth as a
means of attaining the industrial countries’ paradigm is not synonymous with equality,
employment and well-being.

Furthermore, the breakneck advance of science and technology towards ever-increasing

sophistication has sometimes occurred at the expense of human beings, subordinating them to
its aims and leading them into such questionable and hazardous areas as genetic engineering
and nuclear stockpiling.

We have briefly outlined the consequences and costs of a model that claims to be
universal, i.e. the consequences and costs of ‘development’, a process which originated in the

1. Brigitte Leander, ‘The forgotten dimensionsof development’,in Culture and More, No. 12-13, 1994,
pp. 10-12.The author of the article is editor-in-chiefof the journal.
2. Ibid., p. 12.
3. ‘Despite growth . . . the disparitiesare increasing’,in Sources,UNESCO,No. 58, Paris, 1994,pp. 12-13.
 -lO-

West and became firmly rooted in Western culture, which was spread through colonialism and
trade, and which eventually acquired the status of an unchallengeable paradigm, to which all
nations must aspire.

Proceeding on its own terms, this parad@ generated and continues to generate certain
principles which are supposed to confirm its unchallengeability and which are based on:

. legitimizing theoretical assumptions. This is the linear evolutionary principle

which states that all societies progress from ‘traditional’ forms of socialization and
production towards more complex or ‘modem’ forms,4 with ‘development’ as the final
stage in the process, a goal reached through ‘modernity’,’ assuming, that is to say,
certain values and patterns of behaviour derived from secularization and rationalism
combined with an strong dose of individualism, a competitive urge and a notion of well-
being based on attachment to material possessions.

This approach is, in turn, characterized by ethnocentric reasoning which assumes that all
societies may be depended on to emulate the Western model. On this assumption, action by
United Nations agencies should, in theory, lead to ‘modemization’ for those languishing at
lower levels of the evolutionary scale.

. the activities of organizations of the United Nations system, which has been
instrumental in spreading the model worldwide by means of standard-setting and
practical mechanisms, the United Nations Development Decades and the work of the
various agencies.

Such action is justified by assigning to the Western paradigm the status of an

indispensable model for the attainment of well-being, by recognizing it as the only model
capable of enhancing a population’s quality of life through scientific and technological
advances that have simplified working life and guaranteed an optimum standard of living in
terms of health and access to goods and services.

Furthermore, the state of well-being attained through adherence to the principle of

‘development’ is held to be a precondition for attainment of the main goal for which the
United Nations was established: peace. The opposite state, on the other hand, that of
‘underdevelopment’, may be expected to unleash forces that can only lead to war. According
to Federico Mayor, Director-General of UNESCO, underdevelopment bears within itself ‘the
seeds of war, civil or international, for war is the most immediate outlet for the tensions which
poverty sooner or later creates’.6

. the process of globalization through spectacular advances in information and/or

communication technology, carrying the assumptions underlying the model to the

According to Lewis Morgan, ‘... human society is supposedto have ‘advanced’undeviatingly and
progressively,passingthroughcertain‘stages’;thus, from primitive savageryit moved on to barbarity and
from there to civilization’. SeeGloria Martin,: Metddica y melddica de la animacidn cultural, pp. 3 l-32.
Rostow’s theory also statesthat traditional society (without Western science and technology) advances
from a pre-take-off stage to a take-off stage, moves from there to maturity through the adoption of
Western technology and ends up as a consumersociety. See The cultural dimension of development:
Towards a practical approach, p. 119.
We use the term ‘modernity’to refer to the historical processthat producedwhat are currently known as
‘developed’societies. The term ‘modemization’, on the other hand, is used to refer to action aimed at
introducingvaluesbasedon ‘modernity’into countriesviewed as ‘undeveloped’.
FedericoMayor, ‘Let’s get going’, in Sources, UNESCO, No. 30, 1991,p. 8.
 -ll-

farthest comers of the globe, promoting uniform lifestyles, intemationalization of

certain ways of thinking and feeling over which the state has no control, and ultimately
preventing the development of any form of resistance.

As part of the globalization process, countries belonging to a particular region combine

to form economic blocs. This type of integration undermines the sovereignty of the countries
concerned, channelling their energies instead towards the common goal of productivity and
competitiveness and entailing the adoption of specific values in order to comply with the
demands of the supranational economic organizations.

For all these ‘unchallengeable’ reasons, ‘[no] country, whatever its history, its cultural
traditions and antecedents, can currently afford to reject, or ignore, the prevailing, dominant
concept of development based on the Western-originated idea of human progress, and of
which the broad aim is to increase the standard of living of its people as a whole’.7

‘Underdevelopment’: a condition to be overcome

Given the ostensible ‘unchallengeability’ and self-proclaimed superiority of

‘development’, any other mode of existence is viewed as an abomination, a condition to be
eradicated, a synonym of inequality and poverty, and a threat to peace and well-being.

This situation or circumstance is diametrically opposed to the Western model and is

viewed, in comparative terms, as inferior: ‘underdevelopment’ is the label applied to countries
that differ from the paradigm of the industrialized world. Other terms include ‘developing
countries’, ‘least developed countries’ and ‘countries of the South’.

On the phenomenon of ‘underdevelopment’, Elizabeth Leon divides the ‘development’

theories that seek to define this situation into three categories. The first views
‘underdevelopment’ as the negation of ‘development’, the second as a stage in the process of
evolution towards ‘development’, and the third as the result of progress by others towards the
ideal paradigm.*

The first two categories may be said to conform to the principles governing action by the
United Nations system aimed at overcoming this ‘abominable’ condition. As the negation of
‘development’, ‘underdevelopment’ must disappear and be replaced by something resembling
the model constituted by the industrial countries:

‘There is an implicit fatality . . . the fatality of imitation. Having no status themselves,

the ‘underdeveloped’ countries must become what others are’.’

And as countries evolve towards the goal of ‘development’, they must undergo a process
of historical updating or ‘modemization’ so as to enhance their status on the evolutionary
scale.

‘Underdevelopment’ as a consequence of development-oriented action

The strategies applied soon led to serious problems whose harmful impact cast doubt on
the credibility of the ideal of well-being and happiness promoted by the model to be imitated.
As a result, economic criticism was levelled against the development-oriented approach,

7. Mervyn Claxton, Culture and Development - A Study, UNESCO, 1994,p 5 (CLT/DEC/PRO-94/O1).

8. Elizabeth Leh, UNESCO: la mriscara y el poder, p. 93.
9. Ibid., p. 94.
 - 12-

initially by the organizations of the United Nations system. Critical analysis led, for example,
in a publication for the World Decade for Cultural Development,” to a proposed redefinition
of ‘underdevelopment’ not as a situation generated by societies themselves but as a
consequence of ‘development’ strategies:

‘The notion of underdevelopment implies a certain backwardness relative to the model

constituted by the industrial societies, if the improvement of the living conditions of the
people is assumed to depend predominantly on economic performance’. ’*

The application of a predominantly economic approach is therefore held to have created

the existing situation by endeavouring to tackle a supposed state of backwardness. According
to this notion, ‘underdevelopment’ is a lower stage in the process of evolution towards the
model constituted by the ‘developed’ countries.

It should further be noted that, once the existence of distortions or other ill-effects had
been acknowledged, not only poor countries but industrial countries, too, were assigned to a
category considered to be at odds with the idea of ‘development’.

This state of affairs gave rise to the term ‘misdevelopment’:

‘Misdevelopment is the term sometimes used to describe the distortions which the crude
application of the purely economicist, i.e. management, model in the industrialized
nations can introduce, not only in the social and cultural areas but even in the economy
itself .12

This term can also be challenged on the grounds that, as noted in the publication just
quoted, it is too general to permit the indispensable distinction to be made between countries
with capitalist economies and the former socialist countries.‘3 The important point to make,
however, is that it constitutes a criticism of ‘development’ itself by drawing attention to the
many evils that the model has engendered in industrialized countries: violence,
marginalization, exploitation, crime, health problems caused by pollution, and so forth.

This notion forges a link between so-called developed countries and ‘underdeveloped’
countries, since both have felt the impact of the Western paradigm based on fundamentally
economic criteria: what has been called the economistic approach to ‘development’.

The economistic approach

After the Second World War, the world lived in the shadow of two superpowers: the
Soviet Union and the United States. By virtue of their economic prosperity, their military
superiority and their forms of political and social organization, these ‘developed’ countries
exercised a considerable fascination, becoming an ideal that the whole world aspired to equal.
To that end, strategies were devised to promote national economic growth, based to some
extent, in our view, on the aid programmes for European countries which had been
impoverished and weakened by the war,14 a view borne out by the priority given to the
economy over all other considerations in the ‘development’ process.

10. The cultural dimension of development - Towards apractical approach, UNESCO, Paris, 1995.
11. Ibid, p. 24.
12. Ibid, p. 25.
13. Ibid, p. 25.
14. For example,the MarshallPlan.
 - 13 -

At any rate, we can be certain that the economic component was recognized as the key
to achieving this glorious ideal, which had already been endorsed by the United Nations. As a
result, action designed to emulate the superpower model was based in practice on the
economistic approach.

This approach to economic growth was based on the paradigm of short-term

productivity and profitability as a means of tackling the ‘underdevelopment’ which was the lot
of the majority of peoples, so that they might ultimately achieve the status of ‘developed’
societies.

The publication The cultural dimension of development - Towards a practical approach

argues that three principles underlie both ‘economism’ and ‘economicism’.‘5 The first is the
evolutionary concept that we have already examined.

The second principle, derived from the first, is based on ethnocentrism, a conviction of
the superiority of ‘development’ in comparison with other cultures. The idea is ‘that every
society should adopt the values on which the Western societies are based: spirit of initiative,
profit motive, competitiveness, the accumulation of wealth and material security’.r6

The third principle relates to the pre-eminence of economic goals, which calls for
growth in gross national product, attainable only through wholesale industrialization:

‘The predominant emphasis in the development approach was on output goals: capital
formation and raising of GNP were pursued with an all-consuming passion’. l7

On the basis of these principles, the authoritative ‘development’ approach was viewed
as a universal model that could be transplanted to any country or people and was synonymous
with happiness and social well-being. In practice, however, it failed to live up to these claims.
Success proved elusive and implementation of the model tended instead to generate problems
such as rural migration to urban centres, leading to unemployment, marginalization and
overcrowding, unbridled exploitation of natural resources, and pollution, to mention just a
few.

These repeated failures, far from stimulating the development of an alternative paradigm
that would create new patterns of behaviour, sparked a debate on how ‘development’ plans
could be made to work successfully and how the impact of the economistic approach, which
was now being challenged, could be cushioned:

‘The paradigm of development that reigned for nearly three decades is now under severe
strain. [. . .] it has failed to produce the desired results. Much of the development effort
was misdirected and its benefits were highly skewed. This failure has generated fresh
diagnoses of the malaise and a purposive search for alternatives’. ‘*

15. The cultural dimension of development . .. . p. 119.

16. Ibid, p. 119.
17. S.C. Dube, ‘Cultural dimensionsof development’,in International Social Science Journal, NO. 118,
p. 505.
18. Ibid, p. 505.
 - 14-

As a result, concern to promote other parameters began to grow at the international

level, especially in the organizations of the United Nations system, in which the attention paid
to the non-economic factors of development has increased since the early 1980s.”

According to C.A.O. van Nieuwenhuijze, the idea of taking non-economic factors into
account may be interpreted in two ways: it may, on the one hand, signal ‘a belated recognition
of an error’ or, on the other, imply that the attribution of primacy to economic considerations
in ‘development’ programmes is not an incidental methodological error but reflects a model
which attributes primordial status to economic matters.20

The first interpretation is attributable to the failure in practice of the economistic

approach. C.A.O. van Nieuwenhuijze submits that this interpretation prompts an exercise of
‘insertion of social and cultural variables into economic equations’, though without
abandoning the primacy of economic factors, which, far from disappearing, are actually
reinforced:

‘The introduction of so-called sociocultural variables occurs well within the confines of
economism: indeed they reinforce it by apparently vindicating its comprehensiveness’.21

We endorse this argument, according to which the economistic approach was adapted
and embellished with enhanced provision for other variables, which could be tailored to its
parameters. This process involved incorporating other elements, though without admitting any
real change, and extending the notion of ‘development’, while attaching a condition of
adaptability, a procedure which demonstrated the capacity of the approach to adapt itself to
the prevailing circumstances, admitting its inherent practical flaws and accommodating, by
way of rectification, the factors that had undermined its effectiveness and the promised
benefits.

This resulted in a humanizing trend, coupled with a comprehensive vision that

transcended the economic dimension and incorporated other areas. This vision entailed the
enhancement of social, cultural and environmental aspects and hence the emergence of
adjectival attributes.

However, the humanizing trend that emerged in the area of ‘development’ more than 20
years ago has not succeeded in ousting the economic factor from its dominant position in
strategies undertaken by international organizations or in eliminating the political dimension.
The recent publication The cultural dimension of development - Towards a practical
approach, to which we have already referred, puts it as follows:

‘[. . .] for most of the major players on the international stage, the economic and political
dimensions of development are still decisive and [. . ,] this point of view is unlikely to
lose its importance in the foreseeable fi,tture’.22

The ‘humanization of development’

After the failure of the Development Decades, the United Nations set itself the task of
humanizing development. The Decades, far from fulfilling their aims, had coincided with a

19. The cultural dimension of development , p. 41.

20. C.A.O. van Nieuwenhuijze, ‘Culture and development:false dilemmas and real issues’,in International
Social Science Journal, No. 118,p. 5 14.
21. Ibid, p. 5 14.
22. The cultural dimension of development . . . , p. 38.
 - 15-

period of severe impoverishment in many parts of the world, during which GNP growth failed
to ensure equitable income distribution, the situation of the ‘underdeveloped’ countries
remained stationary and the development of poverty was more in evidence than the
development of the poor. The situation was compounded by the devastating impact on the
environment of over-exploitation of natural resources.

These results, which at the very least called for some urgent soul-searching, led to the
conclusion that ‘development’ as an economic goal must be superseded and replaced by the
people-centred goal of increased productivity. The ultimate aim was thus transferred fi-om the
object to the subject.

In 1976, UNESCO stated in the introduction to its Approved Medium-Term Plan for
1977-1982: ‘It is by no means a new idea that development should serve man’.23

Traces of a humanizing trend were in fact discernible at the Venice Conference24 in

1970, which challenged the strictly economic character of ‘development’ and proposed an
integrated approach.2’ It also drew attention to the notion of ‘cultural development’, which
sought to expand the scope of productive and material phenomena to include other aspects - in
this case culture.26 This concern re-emerged, with some variations, at subsequent conferences
on cultural policies.

We propose at this point, however, to draw attention to certain aspects of the

‘humanist principle’ mentioned in UNESCO’s Medium-Term Plan, since they present in
compressed form ideas that are still prominent today in the definition of ‘development’, in the
use of adjectival attributes to describe it and in the Declaration on the Right to Development.

The ‘humanist principle’ called for a redefinition of the economistic approach in such
a way as to afford recognition to the human being as the centre of all development-oriented
activity and as both agent and beneficiary. Furthermore, such activity transcended purely
material considerations, incorporating, in addition, a spiritual dimension:

‘Development must therefore be aimed at the spiritual, moral and material advancement
of the whole human being, both as a member of society and from the point of view of
individual fulfilment’ .27

‘Development’ was also viewed as an integrated process, every branch of human life
being incorporated in a global approach, and as an endogenous process ‘by which a society
consciously and freely chooses the pattern to which it intends to conform’.28 Consideration of
the endogenous aspect also entailed recognition and enhancement of the resources and
potential of individual peoples, which had been overlooked by the economistic approach.

At the conceptual level, the definition adopted at the World Conference on Cultural
Policies in 1982 presented the components of the new approach as follows:

23. Medium-Term Plan (1977-1982), UNESCO (19 C/4), p. 55.

24. UNESCO IntergovernmentalConferenceon the Institutional, Administrative and Financial Aspects of
Cultural Policies, Venice, 24 August-2 September1970.
25. SeeElizabeth Le6n, op. cit., pp. 148-149.
26. Ibid, p. 150.
27. Medium-Term Plan (1977-1982), UNESCO, p. 56.
28. Ibid, p. 57.
 - 16-

‘[. . .] a complex, comprehensive and multidimensional process which extends beyond

mere economic growth to incorporate all dimensions of life and all the energies of a
community, all of whose members are called upon to make a contribution and expect
to share in the benefits’.2g

Motivated by the same humanizing principle, the United Nations General Assembly
adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development at its forty-first session, stipulating that:

‘1. The human person is the central subject of development and should be the active
participant and beneficiary of the right to development’.30

‘Development’ in this Declaration is an all-embracing concept, with economic, social,

cultural and political dimensions. Furthermore, it is viewed not only as a right but also as a
duty:

‘2. All human beings have a responsibility for development, individually and
collectively, [. . .] and they should therefore promote and protect an appropriate
political, social and economic order for development’.31

All human beings thus have a responsibility, individually and collectively, nationally
and internationally, to guarantee certain conditions: the right of self-determination, respect for
human rights, tolerance, active participation, co-operation among peoples, the establishment
of international peace and security, justice and ‘well-being’.

Adjectives for development

The shift to a people-centred approach not only resulted in conceptual changes but also
in a tendency to specify the category of ‘development’ that was being referred to. A number of
adjectives were enlisted for the purpose of dressing ‘development’ in apparel consistent with a
greater measure of humanity. They included ‘sustainable development’, ‘cultural
development’ and ‘human development’, three concepts on which we shall focus in this study.

The adjectival attributes emerged, in our view, in response to major challenges to the
model: culture, a major source of resistance; environment, the major victim; well-being, the
major fallacy.

As a result, we were offered ‘cultural development’, to which we shall return later,

‘sustainable development’, which is designed to promote balance between natural resources
and society’s demand for goods, and ‘human development’, which seeks to ensure the ‘well-
being’ of the individual.

Following the Declaration on the Right to Development, the concept of ‘sustainable

development’ emerged in 1987 and that of ‘human development’ in 1990.

The environment was assuming a high profile, attracting increased attention in

discussions of ‘development’. As a result, the World Commission on Environment and

29. Rethinking Development, UNESCO, p. 7, referring to the definition adoptedat the World Conferenceon
Cultural Policies, Mexico City, 1982.
30. Declaration on the Right to Development, United Nations GeneralAssembly resolution 411128(Annex,
Article 2), New York, 1988.
31. Ibid, Article 2.
 - 17-

Development was established to discuss the issues and produce a report.32 The report became
widely known throughout the world for propounding the concept of sustainable development,
which seems, in reality, more like a strategy for survival. The Brundtland Report, as it is also
known, was a clarion call for the rational use of natural resources. It was an optimistic
document, advocating a new stage of economic growth that would eradicate disparities and
control the process of industrialization, especially in the so-called ‘developing’ countries.

The concept in question took into account ‘the conditions of the natural and human
environment in developmental activities’33 through a global approach that laid special
emphasis on environmental issues but also incorporated demographic issues, fair access to
resources and food, and citizen participation.

It was a matter of choosing to sustain ‘development’, since its adverse ecological impact
was jeopardizing its continuation and the prospects for continued life on earth. Advocating the
idea of a global compromise on the grounds that natural resources belonged to the common
heritage, the Brundtland Report argued that the basic strategy must be one of co-operation and
concerted action against the rapidly accelerating degradation of the earth’s resources.

Three years later, in 1990, the term ‘human development’ was coined and used as the
title of the annual report prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP):

‘Human development is a process of enlarging people’s choices. The most critical

ones are to lead a long and healthy life, to be educated and to enjoy a decent standard
of living. Additional choices include political freedom, guaranteed human rights and
self-respect’.34

The notion of human development thus served to forge an ideal of ‘development’ in

which the following ingredients were blended: access to goods and services and respect for
human rights. It further incorporated environmental issues and economic and political
dimensions and favoured a lifestyle based on democracy and participation.35

In addition, ‘human development’ entailed a quantitative expansion by transcending

exclusively economic considerations. and increasing the number of indicators used to measure
a state’s level of well-being.

‘[Hluman development is measured in this Report not by the yardstick of income alone
but by a more comprehensive index - called the human development index - reflecting
life expectancy, literacy and command over the resources to enjoy a decent standard of
living’.36

The new approach to ‘development’ in the Report thus took the form of a quantitative
expansion based essentially on three principles: longevity, knowledge and per capita gross
domestic product (GDP). The first depended on health conditions (for example the infant
mortality rate) and nutrition, the second on access to education and the third on income
distribution in the population.37

32. Our Common Future, United Nations(A/42/427), also known as the BrundtlandReport.
33. The cultural dimension of development: Towards apractical approach, UNESCO,p. 50.
34. Human Development Report 1990, UNDP, p. 10.
35. Participation was the theme of the 1993 Human DevelopmentReport.
36. Human Development Report 1990, p. 25.
37. Ibid, p. 14.
 - 18-

The Western paradigm as a conjunction of opposites

In the light of our observations concerning the humanizing approach, we may now
attempt to describe the criteria currently used to define ‘development’: it is a model which
does not neglect economic growth but at the same time ‘focuses’ on the human being; which
is imposed from outside but insists that it must be an endogenous process; which does not
reject the pre-eminence of economic factors but cultivates an image of comprehensiveness;
which sets itself up as the only option but claims to respect free choice. It may thus be
described as a paradigm of opposites.

As a paradigm of opposites, ‘development’ has cultivated skills which demonstrate its

adaptability to the prevailing circumstances. We see this faculty at work in conflict
situations, in response to which the model ‘capitulates’, admitting its faults and undertaking to
remedy them through reforms involving absorption of the source of conflict.

For example, faced with the threat of destruction of natural resources, it responded by
means of changes of form and content. At the formal level, the term was expanded through the
attachment of an adjective referring to ecological factors and became ‘sustainable
development’. At the level of content, the limits of the concept were also extended to embrace
environmental aspects. The same procedure was followed in the case of social factors,
producing ‘human development’, and in the case of cultural factors, producing ‘cultural
development’ and ‘cultural dimension of development’.

This opening-up to non-economic factors resulted in a multidisciplinary approach, at

least in the case of UNESCO, according to which all aspects were complementary. This
approach laid the foundations for such ideas as ‘sustainable human development’38 and
‘culture and sustainability’.3g

In addition, the openness to which we had become accustomed through the humanizing
approach to ‘development’ led to explicit recognition of the fact that the model referred to
Western industrial societies and that ‘development” was a cultural phenomenon associated
with the process of evolution of those societies. For example, Mervyn Claxton of the
Secretariat of the World Decade for Cultural Development observes that:

‘[. . .] even the concept of development itself is not culturally neutral. It is rooted in the
Western idea of progress which, combined with the idea of individual independence, the
first signs of which appeared with the disintegration of European feudal society, was
given an impetus by the ideas of the Renaissance and developed, from the eighteenth
century onwards, into an individualism and a sense of competitiveness that was applied
to the accumulation of wealth’.40

Acknowledgement of the specific cultural origin of ‘development’ coexists with the

principle, proclaimed by UNESCO in the context of the World Decade for Cultural

38. ‘Examination of the report by the Secretariat on progress achieved in the project regarding the
methodolo,o for including cultural factors in developmentpolicies, and debate on practical action
enablingthe applicationof a cultural approachto developmentpolicies’, SecondExtraordinarySessionof
the IntergovernmentalCommitteeof the World Decadefor Cultural Development(CLT-951CONF.20714)
UNESCO, Paris, 1994,p. 11, para.78.
39. ‘New orientationsfor the implementationof the Plan of Action of the Decadeuntil 1997 and discussion
on post-decadeactivities’, SecondExtraordinary Session of the IntergovernmentalCommittee of the
World Decadefor Cultural Development(CLT-95/CONF.207/5),UNESCO, Paris, 1994,p. 4.
40. Mervyn Claxton, Culture and Development - A’Study, UNESCO, (CLTIDECIPRO-94/Ol), p. 6.
 - 19-

Development,’ that no ‘single model’ exists and alternative paths may be chosen freely by
communities themselves. This is a further instance of the adaptability mentioned at the
beginning of the section: the paradigm, having been associated with a particular source, that of
the predominant culture, ‘capitulates’ by drawing attention to the right of all societies to
choose their own model.

Humanization is followed by liberation of the economy

The international community has identified two paths whereby the unchallengeable
paradigm of ‘development’ may be attained. They are capitalism and socialism, with, as their
prime exponents, the superpowers which emerged, as we have seen, in the aftermath of the
Second World War. They were in fact two sides of the same coin, two facets of the same
model:

‘[Development] is to a very large extent a product of capitalism, yet it was inherited

without major change by Marxist socialism’.41

The economic and political differences that characterized these approaches to

‘development’ disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union and other regimes in Central
and Eastern Europe. From then on, legitimacy was conferred on a single model as the sole
possible option, since, after the fall of the socialist bloc, capitalism reigned supreme.

The countries that had previously held ‘second developed world’ status experienced
certain changes as a result of these developments. Authoritarian regimes were dissolved,
yielding to the democratic principles espoused by the capitalist countries, and the regime of
exclusive state control over production was replaced by the free market economy.

Like ‘underdevelopment’, socialism became a condition to be shed. Challenges to the

socialist approach were plentiful and doubts about the very existence of ‘development’ under
such circumstances were expressed.42 At all events, with the arrival of the new world order,
development-oriented action was aimed at two categories of countries: the ‘underdeveloped’
or ‘developing’ countries and countries ‘in transition’, namely those of the former Soviet
Union and of Central and Eastern Europe, which underwent:

‘a transition from autocratic rule to greater political freedom and participation, a

sociocultural transition from a life without free movement and travel to one of open
borders, and a psychological transition from a life of being provided for by the state to
having individual and household living standards depend very much on private initiative
and effort’.43

The strategies devised for the two categories of countries mentioned above were
determined by trust in the market, which would, in theory, ensure advancement towards the
cherished goal of prosperity and ‘well-being’. And so the market, with the laws it imposes to
achieve maximum profitability, productivity and economic growth, is effectively the prime
mover in the area of ‘development’ today.

41. The cultural dimension of development... , p. 11.

42. For example, Barry B. Levine claims that ‘A second developedworld simply never existed’. Barry B.
Levine, ‘AmCrica Latina en una era de desencanto’in
, Ciencia Politica, BogotB, second quarter, 1992,
p. 28.
43. Human Development Report, UNDP, p. 46.
 - 20 -

This trend consolidated the sway of economic factors, as may be gathered from the
objective pursued by the World Decade for Cultural Development, as stated in the evaluation
report covering its first five years:

‘The object of the Decade is to change the model of economic development which,
because of the accelerating globalization of the economy, is gradually imposing itself on
the planet with no consideration for cultural context and disregarding the wealth of
human resources acquired over thousands of years of civilization’ .44

Never before had ‘development’ been so overwhelmingly dominated by the economic

dimension, whose sway was such that state sovereignty began to be eroded through
subordination to regional alliances, which were forged with a view to establishing
supranational machinery or economic blocs capable of featuring as strong players in the
competitive world order. As a result of this phenomenon, state authority gradually lost ground,
ceded control and was engulfed by multinational forces.

In addition, as the economistic approach gained ground, with free-market ideology as its
standard-bearer, more and more time was spent discussing the human being as the focus of
‘development’ and the need to attach greater importance, at least in theory, to individual ways
of thinking, living and feeling. This trend is discernible, for example, in the documents for the
World Decade for Cultural Development, UNDP’s Human Development Reports and the
United Nations publication An Agendafir DeveZopment.4’Moreover, it is not fortuitous, since
an increasingly humanist perception of the model constitutes a palliative designed to smooth
over reality and make it more digestible.

Strategies for change

Three basic strategies of action to promote the change to ‘development’ may be

identified: political will, co-operation and participation. All three are present in the Human
Development Report, and also in the previous Declaration on the Right to Development and
the Brundtlund Report. We are not suggesting that they are the only ones, but we intend to
focus on them in this study since they constitute shared aspects of the policy, referred to
earlier, of the World Decade for Cultural Development.

Political will

Governments carry great weight in the implementation of development-oriented

reforms, for it is they which have the authority to make the necessary arrangements for the
establishment of a market economy. They must also provide for rational use of the
environment and ensure that human beings are the real beneficiaries of such reforms.

This calls for political will, reflected in a strong capacity for action at the national level,
consolidation of action through the training of human resources, and the establishment of
machinery to monitor and sustain the reforms undertaken and to ensure their continuity. This
political action reinvigorates the other strategies of co-operation and participation so that they
also serve to promote ‘modemization’.

44. ‘Examinationof the mid-term summaryevaluationreport on the Plan of Action for the Decadecalled for
under paragraph3.C of United Nations resolution A/46/157’, Second Extraordinary Session of the
Intergovernmental Committee of the World Decade for Cultural Development
(CLT-95/CONF.207/INF.6),UNESCO, Paris, 1995,p. 12, para.93.
45. Boutros Boutros-Ghali,An Agenda for Development, United Nations, 1995,132 pp.
 -2l-

The object of government action to bring about change may be described as the
humanization of production, which is feasible by virtue of the coexistence of the economic
factor and the humanizing principle. But how is it achieved? By imposing the economic
measures recommended by international organizations and cushioning their impact by means
of standard-setting and social provisions in view of the principle that ‘[mlarkets should serve
people - rather than people serving markets’.46

Co-operation

International co-operation is assigned very high priority in international organizations, in

our view because it constitutes the operationally most effective form of action, given the
immense difficulty of dealing with each country separately.

In addition, co-operation is recognized as an essential means of transmitting knowledge

and resources in order to provide access to change. Accordingly, it is identified with the
notion of transfer, aid and technical assistance. The following quotation reflects this attitude to
the so-called ‘developing’ countries:

‘[ . ..I effective international co-operation is essential in providing these countries with

appropriate means and facilities to foster their comprehensive development’ .47

Provision is thus made for the transfer of information and technology on the pretext of
co-operation, through a procedure which seeks to emphasize equality and conceal the
imposition of exogenous forms of knowledge.

As a strategy conducive to change, co-operation is a one-way process, so that no real co-

operation occurs. However, in cases such as the Strategy for the Implementation of the Plan of
Action for the World Decade for Cultural Development, a two-way process is simulated to
mask the transfer. The aim of this process is to enhance the self-esteem of the
‘underdeveloped’ countries or the countries ‘in transition’ under the heading of participation -
which brings us to the next point.

Participation and empowerment

The idea of participation has been gradually gaining ground in all ‘development’
strategies, featuring as a right and duty in the Declaration on the Right to Development, as a
commitment in the Brundtland Report and as the key theme of the 1993 Human DeveZopment
Report.

In the latter report, we find an acknowledgement of the need to involve communities

actively in the effort to enhance their quality of life. It states that participation:

‘[i]n economic terms , [. . .] means being able to engage freely in any economic activity.
In social terms, it means being able to join fully in all forms of community life [. . .].
And in political terms, it means the freedom to choose and change governance at every
level, from the presidential palace to the village council’.48

46. ‘Peopleand markets’,in Human Development Report, UNDP, 1993,p. 30.

47. United Nations GeneralAssemblyresolution41/128 (Annex), ‘Declaration on the Right to Development’,
Article 4, paragraph2. See also Human Development Report 1993. pp. 7-8.
48. Human Development Report 1993, p. 21.
 - 22 -

It will be seen that the procedures for participation amount to little more than routine
operations based on the roles that people play in society. We participate, for example, as
consumers, as family members and as voters, or, better still, by sharing the same language, or
feeling as though we are ‘participating Y49in world affairs through information technology.

We may conclude in the light of the foregoing that participation as a strategy for change
consists in making the ‘undeveloped’ believe they are appreciated and in concealing the
persuasive nature of development-oriented activity. The argument is that participants shape
their own destiny, but, although they may seem to be in control, they have in reality been
deprived of their potential for independent action and are doomed instead to reproduce the
universally approved procedures for attainment of the prescribed model. In the final analysis,
participation boils down to the simple notion of ‘gaining access’.

Viewing the world from a different standpoint

It remains to be seen whether the conceptual ‘about-turns’ of ‘development’ can correct

the existing distortions and address the untoward consequences that it has entailed. The
emergence of these consequences generated a strong challenge to its status and also a belief in
the need to develop alternative paradigms.

Although the ‘unchallengeable’ paradigm has relentlessly consolidated its position and
asserted itself as the only path to happiness, peace and well-being, it has nevertheless drawn
sharp criticism because of the questionable predominance of economic factors over every
other consideration and the subordination of social policies to such factors. It is also blamed
for seeking to impose the values of the Western model on other societies.

The introduction to the above-mentioned UNESCO publication The cultural dimension

of development draws attention to the predominance of the economic dimension in Western
countries, which has led to the emergence, in both industrial and so-called developing
countries, of movements that challenge the model on account of the detrimental impact of
‘development’:

‘The strictly economic development model originated in the Western countries, where it
still operates as a super-standard, despite the emergence of opposition movements that
seek to ensure development by less costly means in social, ecological and human terms,
especially in view of the recent aggravation of the employment crisis in Europe. The
same quest for an economic and social development model inspires the current debate in
the developing counties, which are considering how they might consolidate and bring
under control the means of improving the situation’.5o

This is not an isolated assessment. The World Summit for Social Development not only
brought together heads of state and ministers concerned at the rapidly deteriorating quality of
life in a lavish event convened to discuss such issues as equity, justice and dignity, but also
provided a venue for non-governmental organizations intent on challenging traditional social
policies:

‘But the non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which had organized an alternative

forum in Copenhagen, pointed out that the Summit sponsored by the United Nations
was focusing on a strategy designed to “cushion the impact of adjustment programmes”

49. Ibid, p. 24.

50. The cultural dimension of development - Towards apractical approach, UNESCO, p. 25.
 -23 -

instead of championing new policies that would “cater for the needs, priorities and
future plans of each people”‘.”

The claim that ‘development’ leads to peace has also been challenged. In practice,
conflicts may erupt in response to attempts to impose the model:

‘The failure of the West to introduce democracy and other secular values into Muslim
countries coincided with a radicalization of Koranic exegesis, largely induced by the
zealous efforts of the so-called First World to transplant different political and
economic models, to which it ascribes a universal status, to other societies’.52

At any rate, there has been no abatement in the cries of anguish and alarm. Voices of
protest continue to be raised, refusing to accept a one-dimensional view of the world:

‘Is this the only possible way of looking at the world? Have all alternatives really
disappeared? Is it true that history is, after all, teleological, progressing towards the
single goal of an all-powerful market? Is the world of progress, development and
material well-being that we are being offered the best of all possible worlds, our best
hope for human happiness and freedom, a desirable and attainable world for the whole
of the world’s population?‘.53

51. ‘La pobrezatiene carade mujer’, in El Universal, 8 March 1995,pp. l-6.

52. Fabiola Zerpa,‘Bajo el signo de1Islam’, in El National, Caracas,23 July 1995,p. A-6.
53. Edgardo Lander, ‘La necesidadde mirar al mundo desdeotro lugar’, in Cuadernos Nuevo Sur, No. 1,
1992.
 -25 -

CHAPTER 2

THE ‘DEVELOPMENT’ OF CULTURE: UNESCO’S VIEWPOINT

The conceptual expansion of culture

The cultural product

Within UNESCO, the concept of culture has evolved in much the same way as
‘development’, gradually expanding through a process of accretion. Just as ‘development’
transcended the definition that had identified it with economic growth and became an
integrated concept, so also culture burst through the confines of a restrictive definition and
took on new dimensions.

The restrictive definition consisted of memory in terms of the cultural heritage and
creativity in terms of artistic expression. It also gave prominence to the cultural product:

‘During the 1960s and 1970s the concept of ‘culture’, frequently still restricted to its
products, in particular works of art and literature and the cultural heritage in the form of
both objects and buildings, was progressively extended [. . .] ’.j4

As a result of this extension, culture later came to be perceived as the sum total of the
characteristics that constitute a people’s distinctive character and set it apart from others. For
example, the World Conference on Cultural Policies,” held in Mexico City in 1982, offered
the following definition:

‘[. . .] the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional
features that characterize a society or social group. It includes not only the arts and
letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems,
traditions and beliefs’ .j6

This definition mentions a series of characteristics that are shared by a community and
are based on a store of knowledge inherited from the past. It does not specify how this
knowledge can be restructured to create a new order, drawing on the creative potential of the
community or group, or on knowledge acquired from other cultures.

As in the case of the restrictive concept, culture is defined in terms of its products, no
longer confined, however, to the material world but incorporating intangible creative activity,
which is crystallized in ways of thinking and feeling such as beliefs and values.

The Mexico City definition is simply a list of ingredients with no reference to their
dynamic potential. This enumerative approach removes the object or product from the context
in which it is produced and, in so doing, reduces it to a simpler material state, ignoring the
process whereby it came into being.

54. The cultural dimension of development , p. 22.

55. Final Report, World Conferenceon Cultural Policies, Mexico City, 1992,UNESCO, (CLT/MD/l).
56. Ibid. ‘Mexico City Declarationon Cultural Policies’, p. 41.
 -26 -

The cultural process

UNESCO continues to sanction the enumerative definition adopted at the Mexico City
Conference. And the World Decade for Cultural Development draws on the same idea for its
interpretation of culture.

However, the publication The cultural dimension of development - Towards a practical

approach, a Decade project, acknowledges its limitations:

‘[. . .] it does not completely explain the dynamic nature of every culture, or the
exchanges and interchanges between cultures. Nor does it pay sufficient heed to the
evolution that all cultures go through, firstly because of their own dynamic and secondly
because they come under the influence of all kinds of globalization, modemization and
technological, economic and social transformation processes’.57

This approach reflects the concern to view culture as a process, which is enriched both
through its own inventiveness and through contact with ‘modem’ values. It is thus recognized
as having a dynamic character, a view echoed at the International Conference on Education,
which took the contribution of education to cultural development as the theme of its forty-
third session:

‘[Culture] is not restricted to the heritage, but is enriched and developed through both
creativity and memory’.58

We may infer from this statement that the idea of an inherited product has been
superseded by the concept of an evolutionary process which draws on the past (memory) and
is enriched in the present through creative activity, projecting itself into the future in
accordance with the ‘modemizing’ pattern.

Once this dynamic aspect of the cultural process, involving both internal and external
inputs, has been acknowledged, the introduction of ‘development-related’ elements can be
justified by the argument that cultures do not exist in a vacuum. The previously mentioned
publication on the cultural dimension of development puts it as follows:

‘Cultures are not ‘intact’ [. . .]: they are being continuously changed by contacts of all
kinds between the various peoples’.5g

And the International Conference on Education observed that:

‘A living culture cannot be inward-looking; exchanges make it fertile.‘60

Contact between one culture and another and between individual cultures and a putative
universal culture is thus held to be necessary and indispensable for the ‘development’ of the
former in accordance with the values of the latter.

57. The cultural dimension of development .. . . p. 22.

58. Final Report, UNESCO International Conferenceon Education, 43rd session, Geneva, 1992, p. 18
(EDMD/95).
59. The cultural dimension of development . .. . p, 37.
60. Final Report, p. 18.
 -27 -

An approach to universal culture and cultural particularity

We have just noted that, in terms of meaning, culture may be viewed as either a product
or a process. By a further extension of meaning, we may refer either to a universal culture or
to a particular culture.

By universal culture we mean the process of extension whereby the Western model
aspires to consolidate its status globally. As an ostensibly universal culture, it seeks to expand
into all comers of the earth through ‘development’. Moreover, it sees itself as belonging to a
higher order, sustained by the authority it derives from ‘modernity’. It also aspires to establish
its status as the ideal to which particular cultures must be given access.

A particular culture is the antithesis of universal culture and consists of the specific
attributes and distinctive characteristics of a people or a group that does not belong to the
community of the ‘developed’. It is supposed to represent the traditional as opposed to the
‘modem’ and is viewed - though not always - simply as culture in relation to ‘development’.
The sum total of particular cultures constitutes cultural diversity. In comparison with the
Western paradigm, the various cultures are an unfinished project, which will gradually be
completed as they come to resemble the paradigm and envision a shared future with its
protagonists. These diverse cultures therefore ‘have a duty’ to carve out for themselves a
future which is desirable in terms of the Western model.

It follows that contact with the universal culture becomes a necessity because it
constitutes the model to be imitated. But the results of a number of ‘development’ projects
indicate that such contact has proved to be a source of conflict. In response to this adverse
outcome, ‘development’ strategies have been designed to achieve a relationship based on
consensus.

Contact as a source of conflict

Contact between the two categories of culture that we are considering may generate
tension and meet with resistance from particular cultures. Such resistance was encountered,
for example, in the case of ‘development’ activities which, according to documents for the
World Decade for Cultural Development, were based on strategies that gave primacy to purely
economic and scientific criteria:

‘[. . .] it is not surprising that national and international development strategies and
projects which systematically put economic and scientific criteria first, encountered
indifference on the part of the populations concerned, or were actually rejected’.61

This indifference or rejection and the consequent failure of the ‘development’ projects
may be attributed to incompatibilities of a social, technological, agricultural, religious or other
nature. For example, a sedentarization project for a nomadic community shows the
incompatibility of the housing model proposed by the ‘developer’ with the community’s own
model:

‘[. . .] the planners in a Middle Eastern country entrusted the construction of a town for
20,000 inhabitants to a group of consulting engineers consisting of both foreign and
local experts. [. . .] The town plan was designed on ‘checkerboard’ lines, with streets
intersecting each other at right angles. [. . .] Despite intensive efforts, the failure of this

61. A practical guide to the World Decade for Cultural Development 1988-97, UNESCO, Paris, 1967,p. 14.
 -28 -

project was spectacular. The town was built, but remained unoccupied: the nomads used
their own resources to build another residential zone with a semi-circular layout and the
house of the chief in the centre.‘62

It should be noted that, in cases of resistance of this kind, the cultural element manifests
itself as a sense of alienation from what is different, a response which has been defined as
identity or the sense of identification with a group. On this point, Gloria Martin notes that:

‘[. . .] the real meaning of the concept of ‘identity’ has less to do with ‘definition’ than
with a collective awareness which is directed uncompromisingly against those who
negate it’.63

It follows that identity refers to the sense of belonging to a community and of needing to
react, as a member of the community, to those who seek to undermine its legitimacy. Such a
response may lead to indifference to ‘development’ projects or even outright rejection. As a
result, steps are currently being taken in UNESCO to specify the role of cultural factors with a
view to minimizing conflict and the resultant failure of ‘modemizing’ activities. According to
the Medium-Term Strategy 1996-2001, the long-term goal that UNESCO has set itself is ‘to
arrive at a clearer understanding of the role played by cultural factors in determining the
success or failure of development strategies’.64

Contact as a source of consensus

In the effort to avoid or at least minimize conflict and rejection, UNESCO has taken up
this concern and made statements reaffirming that the cultural element must be taken into
account in ‘development’ processes. This issue has been discussed since 1970 at the
Conferences on Cultural Policies.

Following the failure of ‘development’ projects based on totally external approaches,

ideas for a new approach began to emerge. The discussions that ensued, at least in UNESCO,
shed some light on the matter, concluding that the approach must take as its starting-point a
recognition of internal factors. As a result, some recognition of distinctive characteristics with
a view to involving them in the process of change was a basic ingredient of subsequent
activities.

With reference to the definitions of culture and ‘development’ proposed by the Mexico
City Conference, the following statement was made in the context of a project relating to the
World Decade for Cultural Development:

‘[. . .] development is a cultural process that cannot be imposed from outside or

presented as a gift from benevolent bilateral or multilateral donor agencies, but must be
generated from within each society itself .65

62. The cultural dimension of development ... . p. 144.

63. Gloria Martin, Metddica de la animacidn cultural, p. 63.
64. Medium-Term Strategy 1996-2001, UNESCO, p. 29, para. 120 (28 C/4).
65. ‘Examination of the report by the Secretariat on progress achieved in the project regarding the
methodolo,T for including cultural factors in developmentpolicies, and debate on practical action
enablingthe application of a cultural approachto developmentpolicies’, secondextraordinarysessionof
the IntergovernmentalCommitteeof the World Decadefor Cultural Development,UNESCO, Paris, 1994,
p. 6, para. 39 (CLT-95/CONF.207/4).
 - 29 -

This new approach to projects fell outside UNESCO’s competence as a Specialized

Agency of the United Nations responsible for culture and was taken up instead by other
international organizations:

‘Since the early 1980s the World Bank has been experimenting with a number of
techniques designed to take into account either the needs of the populations affected by
development projects or their cultural values and practices’.66

Steps were thus taken to ensure the gradual imposition of a new contact-based vision
and approach that would provide for the coexistence of cultural diversity and the values of the
global model. This endogenous approach presupposes, in our view, an attempt to reconcile the
source of a people’s knowledge and experience, or the values of a particular culture, with the
‘unchallengeable’ inputs conducive to adoption of the universal culture. The idea is to work
on the recognized source of conflict in the particular culture in order to achieve consensus and
acceptance.

Hence, the cultural and human resources of the peoples to be ‘developed’ are appraised ’
and the need to preserve the great cultural treasures generated by their particularity is also
given priority.

On the basis of this new approach to development-oriented activity, universal culture

agrees to become pluralist and claims to have achieved diversity in unity, the convergence of
a multitude of particularities in a global project. This is what Yoro Fall has called pluralist
development.67

As a result, there is, at least in theory, some feedback between the two categories of
culture, since the particular culture absorbs ‘development’ components which are to be
reinterpreted in the light of its own values. Universal culture, for its part, opens its doors to
procedures which, again theoretically, make it possible to preserve traditional factors:

‘Taking culture as the starting-point means basing development on the identity and
values of each people. It means accepting that there are many appropriate models of
development [. . .] depending on the particularities of each group and the circumstances
of the model’s application. All of them need to be designed and implemented with
great care, with respect for the great diversity of cultural values and survival strategies
existing in the world’.68

Global identity - particular iden tit-y

No discussion of contacts between universal culture and particular culture can fail to
mention the notion of identity. We referred earlier to identity as a source of conflict but we
shall now focus on an aspect designed to promote reconciliation, an objective to which we
also referred. The concept of identity adopted at the Mexico City Conference combines the
endogenous element with the external dimension:

66. The cuIturaZ dimension of development ... . p. 53; see also Chapter 1 ‘The institutions of the United
Nations system’, which describesactivities carried out by the World Health Organization(WHO), the
Food and Agriculture Organizationof the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA) and others.
67. Yoro Fall, a Senegalese
historian,is a memberof the World Commissionon Culture and Development.
68. Rethinking Development, UNESCO, p. 7.
 - 30 -

‘Cultural identity is a treasure that vitalizes mankind’s possibilities of self-fulfilment by

moving every people and every group to seek nurture in its past, to welcome
contributions from outside that are compatible with its own characteristics, and so to
continue the process of its own creation’ .6g

Later on, in the context of the World Decade for Cultural Development, this notion
emerges as a clear-cut formula for ensuring coexistence of the particular with the universal
model:

‘They have learned the paradox of cultural identity: that it affirms and enhances the
value of the particular, yet reinforces a sense of common purpose as human beings
inhabiting a single planet’.70

According to this view, identity enhances harmonious coexistence and there is no sense
of incompatibility between local or national allegiance and universal allegiance. It is a notion
that incorporates uniqueness and diversity, recognizing the right to preserve originality and
conferring legitimacy on a global undertaking. An identity that we shall call global is thus
forged alongside particular identities, and a combination of the two is supposed, in theory, to
pave the way for all peoples to achieve ‘development’, while respecting their distinctive
characteristics.

Culture in relation to development

For more than 20 years, UNESCO has been discussing the relationship between culture
and ‘development’. Major importance was attached to this relationship under the heading of
‘cultural development’ at the Intergovernmental Conference on the Institutional,
Administrative and Financial Aspects of Cultural Policies, held in Venice in 1970, and a new
notion, the ‘cultural dimension of development’, emerged in later discussions at regional
conferences. The debate continued through the 1980s and culminated in the decision to
proclaim the period from 1988 to 1997 the World Decade for Cultural Development.

We may conclude from these initiatives that views on the relationship between culture
and ‘development’ have undergone a number of changes. The relationship was initially
viewed as a dimension within ‘integrated development’. It later came to be viewed as the most
important factor, and was subsequently recognized as the driving force behind the
‘modemizing’ process. These different views basically fall into two categories: culture as a
supplement and culture as an instrument.

Culture as a supplement: balancing development

In its relationship with ‘development’, culture may play a supplementary role in the
integrated approach to the paradigm, joining other factors incorporated with a view to toning
down the strictly economic interpretation. In order to incorporate culture as a supplement,. a
balance must be struck between the economistic approach to ‘development’ and the inclusion
of humanizing factors:

‘Balanced development can only be ensured by making cultural factors an integral part
of the strategies designed to achieve it [. . .I’.‘l

69. Final Report, ‘Mexico City Declarationon Cultural Policies’, pp. 4 l-42, para.3.
70. Rethinking Development, p. 14.
71. Final Report, ‘Mexico City Declarationon Cultural Policies’, p. 42, para. 16.
 -3l-

In terms of this approach, culture constitutes the qualitative dimension to be added to

the quantitative view of ‘development’. Furthermore, culture is combined, on a basis of
equality, with other sectors such as health, housing, science and education, which together
constitute what is known as ‘integrated development’.

Culture as an instrument: the driving force of ‘development’

Viewed as a fundamental dimension of the ‘development’ process by the Mexico City

Conference,72 the notion of culture has progressed to the point where it is assigned a crucial
role in bringing about change.

According to Melvyn Claxton:

‘Development is a seamless web, whose fabric contains a multitude of interwoven

strands. It is culture, however, which provides the colour, the texture, the weave, the
resilience, the strength of that fabric’.73

Once the pre-eminent role of culture in ‘development’ is acknowledged, its relationship

with the ‘modemization’ process will entail recognition of the dynamic role it plays in that
process and its capacity for promoting change. Accordingly, UNESCO’s current Medium-
Term Strategy highlights culture as a driving force in ‘development’:

‘UNESCO for its part will be substantially reorienting its action to promote both the
world heritage and living cultures in order to give due consideration to the increasingly
dynamic role which culture is assuming as an economic development objective’ .74

Culture is thus endowed with a vitality that can generate the appropriate conditions for
implementation of. ‘development’ projects. Planned activities will therefore treat cultural
factors not as a supplement but as the instrument that can guarantee success:

‘[. . .] there can be no really successful development that does not recognize, and utilize,
culture’s vitalizing force [. . .]‘.75

Viewed from this angle, identity, the potential generator of conflict situations, assumes a
more promising aspect so that it is actually identified with the idea of cultural confidence:

‘Even the feeling of cultural identity, which may sometimes have destructive side-
effects, can be the engine of a community’s economic and social transformation. Some
people call this having confidence in one’s own culture’ .76

In order to operate as the engine of change, the sense of belonging associated with
identity turns into a sense of confidence in one’s own culture. This is the kind of motivation
that brings about the changes that are necessary to achieve ‘modemization’:

‘Cultural confidence appears to be an essential factor in the development equation. It

appears to bear a relationship to development similar to that which business confidence
has with the economic climate in a developed country - essential elements of unknown

72. Ibid., p. 42, para. 10.

73. Mervyn Claxton, Culture and development: a symbiotic relationship, in Culture Plus, No. 12-13,p. 9.
74. Medium-Term Strategy 1996-2001, p. 29, para. 122.
75. Mervyn Claxton, Culture and development ... , p. 8.
76. The cultural dimension of development ... . p. 127 (author’semphasis).
 - 32 -

quantity which cannot be predicted or programmed, but which, in the case of cultural
confidence, provide that magic key which unlocks the cultural energy of a people’.77

This vitalizing energy is theoretically responsive to otherness in the interests of

achieving ‘a conjunction of external prompting and internal momentum’.78 This is reflected in
the coexistence of ‘modernity’ with so-called tradition, which is conducive to adaptation when
the time comes for ‘modemization’. Some Asian countries which have achieved
‘development’ present an example of adaptation to the Western model and its values:

‘An external experience, technique or model cannot be successfully assimilated by mere

adoption or reproduction; it needs to be reinterpreted or reinvented [. . .]. In Japan and in
certain South-East Asian countries, western economic principles have been successfully
re-interpreted in accordance with those countries’ own systems of values and their own
economic culture’.7g

As an instrument, culture evidently guarantees the meaning of ‘modem’ values. Culture

furthermore serves as a resource, since not only does it absorb the development-oriented
component but its original potential is also exploited. Accordingly, culture is involved in the
‘development’ process in order to stimulate progress towards change. It follows that the
cultural process suspends its own motion in order to fit into the ‘development’ process, thus
fulfilling its function as an engine and stimulus.

It may be noted in conclusion that the meaning of culture in relation to ‘development’

has evolved to the point where culture has become a key factor which determines the success
or failure of development-oriented activity. As a result, the cultural factor is introduced into
the parameters used in the planning of ‘development’ projects and also features at the stages
of project analysis, implementation and evaluation.

We shall therefore note later in this study that one of the main activities undertaken in
the context of the World Decade for Cultural Development was the production of a
methodology for integrating cultural factors into ‘development’ projects.

Cultural development

Pierre Moulinier observes in a UNESCO document” that the notion of ‘cultural

development’ emerged during the 1960s but assumed prominence in the context of the 1970
Intergovernmental Conference on the Institutional, Administrative and Financial Aspects of
Cultural Policies, ‘which recognized, in particular, that cultural development should be
viewed in terms of its interaction with economic and social development’.81 ‘Cultural
development’ thus assumed the status of a humanizing endeavour, as a balancing counterpart
to the quantitative and economistic dimensions of ‘development’.

As a result of the culture-‘development’ linkage, ‘cultural development’ consists of two

elements or components derived from these two concepts, which evolved in the course of the
Conferences on Cultural Policies convened by UNESCO following the Venice Conference.
The cultural aspect and the ‘development’ aspect may be observed in the following definition:

77. Culture and Development - A Stu&, UNESCO, p. 55.

78. Yoro K. Fall, ‘Multiple cultures,pluralist development’,in UNESCO Sources, No. 58, May 1994,p. 9.
79. Culture and Development - A Study, p. 19.
80. Pierre Moulinier, Programme de l’UNESCO en matidre de dkveloppement culturel: prhentation des
travaux re’alisb depuis 1960, UNESCO, Paris, 1990, 109 pp.
81. Ibid., Preface.
 -33 -

‘According to the definition in the International thesaurus of cultural development

published by UNESCO in 1981, cultural development is a process of development or
progress in the cultural life of a community, aimed at the attainment of cultural values
and related to the general conditions of economic and social development’.82

Moulinier further observes that the concept of ‘cultural development’ has changed,
progressing from a restrictive interpretation to incorporation in the ‘modemizing’ process.
Thus, ‘cultural development’ was initially viewed in terms of a restrictive interpretation of
culture, later reinterpreted in the light of its relationship with other sectors and ultimately
recognized as a crucially important factor within the ‘development’ process:

‘Cultural development, initially confined within the narrow bounds of preservation of

the heritage and artistic creativity, expanded to include a set of ‘interlinked’ policies,
including education, communication, the environment, science and other areas, and
eventually came to be viewed as an essential ingredient of integrated development’.83

It follows that the ‘development’ component gained ground and ultimately triumphed through
the proposal to proclaim the period from 1988 to 1997 the World Decade for Cultural
Development,84 a fundamental purpose of which was to revitalize ‘modemizing’ approaches:

‘[...I a direct consequence of the failure of the two United Nations Development
Decades, its basic aim was to inform the world of the importance of the cultural
dimension in global development. The idea was to revitalize the approach to global
economic problems that takes the human being into account’.*’

Overriding importance is thus attached to the ‘developmental’ component as opposed to

the cultural component, which remains within the confines of the discussion of ‘cultural
development’, a discussion that channelled all its energy into the concern to achieve
‘modemization’ with a cultural hue and to integrate culture into national policies for change
designed to ensure attainment of the putative universal paradigm.

However, despite the pre-eminent status of the Western model, it may be observed that
‘cultural development’ was defined in cultural terms at the forty-third session of the
International Conference on Education held in 1992:

‘Cultural development, as a dynamic process, means the enriching of culture, the

strengthening of forms of cultural expression and making culture available to everyone
by promoting wide-ranging participation and creativity through appropriate means in a
spirit of mutual respect and tolerance’.86

The notion therefore seems to be somewhat flexible, at times confined within

exclusively cultural bounds and at times expanding to include elements involving the
‘modemization’ process. We shall note the existence of both tendencies or proclivities in our
analysis of the World Decade for Cultural Development.

82. Ibid.
83. Ibid., p. 1.
84. Proposedin 1982in RecommendationNo. 27 of the World Conferenceon Cultural Policies.
85. PierreMoulinier, Programme de l’UNESCO . .. . p. 48.
86. Final Report, InternationalConferenceon Education,p. 18.
 - 34 -

From the culturai dimension of development to the developmental dimension of culture

A product of the discussions generated by culture and ‘development’, the term cultural
dimension of ‘development’ emerged in 1975 in the context of the Intergovernmental
Conference on Cultural Policies in Africa.87 It was recognized in the Mexico City
Declaration” as a humanizing accessory which would supplement the quantitative and
economic dimensions of development and as the qualitative dimension needed to ensure the
all-round development of human beings in addition to their physical well-being.

The idea of the cultural dimension of ‘development’ as a supplementary ingredient was

subsequently endorsed by the Intergovernmental Committee of the World Decade for Cultural
Development. The Committee’s report on the cultural dimension of development noted that:

‘The importance of the aesthetic and artistic dimension in life should [. . .] be fully
recognized. These would balance the overemphasis on science and technology and
development perceived solely in economic terms’.8g

However, this view was accompanied by an interpretation of the cultural dimension as

an instrument or resource which determines the success or failure of ‘modemizing’ activities.
In this connection, the previously mentioned publication The culturaZ dimension of
development - Towards a practical approach offers a definition which combines the status of
a supplement with that of an instrument:

‘[.. .] the cultural dimension of development embraces all the psycho-sociological

components which, like the economic, technological and scientific factors, help to
improve the material and intellectual life of the populations without introducing any
violent change into their way of life or modes of thought, and at the same time
contribute to the technical success of the development plans or projects’.g0

It should further be noted that this definition contains an interpretation of the cultural
dimension as an intangible dimension, as the subjective element that was missing from the
‘objective’ approach (which is identical with the ‘developmental’ approach) to
‘modemization’ projects. The cultural dimension is therefore recognized in the context of the
World Decade for Cultural Development as a methodological tool for the creation and
implementation of such projects.

The publication just quoted notes that the definition has evolved so that the focus has
shifted, initially to the role of the cultural dimension as a factor, and eventually to its impact:

‘[. . .] during the 198Os, there was a transition from the idea of cultural dimension to that
of the factors, parameters and cultural impact of development’.g1

As a result of this evolution, the relationship between culture and ‘development’ came
to be viewed from the essentially practical standpoint of determining the degree of acceptance
and/or rejection of alien or ‘modemizing’ inputs in communities where projects involving

87. UNESCO IntergovernmentalConferenceon Cultural Policies in Afi-ica, Accra, 27 October-6November

1975.
88. Final Report, ‘Mexico City Declarationon Cultural Policies’, p. 42, paras. lo- 16.
89. Final Report, IntergovernmentalCommittee of the World Decade for Cultural Development,second
regularsession,Paris, 1990,Annex IV, p. 3.
90. The cultural dimension of development . , p. 2 1.
91. Ibid.
 - 35 -

change were to be implemented. The idea of impact led to the forging of links between
cultural aspects and on-site activities as a means of assessing the success or failure of such
activities:

‘Measuring the cultural impact of development makes it possible to assess the

acceptability of innovation and outside inputs’.g2

Lastly, the emphasis placed on the changing relationship between culture and
‘development’, as a result of which the latter came to be viewed as a cultural process, implied,
as noted by Mervyn Claxton,g3 that ‘development’ should be viewed as a dimension of culture
rather than the reverse. The cultural dimension of ‘development’ would then become the
developmental dimension of universal culture.

92. Ibid., p. 129.

93. Mervyn Claxton, Culture and Development , p. 11.
 - 37 -

CHAPTER 3

THE WORLD DECADE FOR CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Brief review

The discussions of the relationship between culture and ‘development’, which began in
the 1970s in the context of the Conferences on Cultural Policies convened by UNESCO, led
to a proposal for the proclamation of a decade for cultural development.

This initiative was taken up by the World Conference on Cultural Policies in 1982 and
given concrete form in Recommendation No. 27,94 which recommended that the General
Conference of UNESCO propose to the United Nations General Assembly the proclamation
of a World Decade for Cultural Development. The same recommendation requested the
General Assembly to study the possibility of including among the objectives of the Third
United Nations Development Decade the implementation of a plan of action within the
framework of the proposed Decade, presumably in order to:

‘[. . .] eradicate illiteracy, ensure broad participation in culture and emphasize the
cultural dimension of develonment and the affrmation of the cultural identitv of each
A ,

nation , .95

The proposal to proclaim a Decade was submitted to the General Conference of

UNESCO at its 22nd session, and the Conference decided to submit it to the United Nations
General Assembly for endorsement.96

To that end, the Director-General requested the United Nations Secretary-General to

transmit the proposal to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).97 The Council
discussed the matter at its second regular session in 1984 (Geneva, 4-27 July). Once this
procedure was completed, UNESCO embarked on consultations with the organizations of the
United Nations system and prepared a draft plan of action for submission to the General
Conference at its 23rd session, in 1985. The bodies that responded to requests for information
included the Economic Commission for Africa, the Economic Commission for Latin America
and the Caribbean, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations
Industrial Development Organization and the World Bank.

The draft plan of action to be submitted to the General Conference at its 23rd session
was prepared on the basis of consultations with organizations of the United Nations system
and the Member States of UNESCO. Pursuant to the resolutions and decisions of the General
Conference and Executive Board of UNESCO and resolution 1986/69 of the Economic and
Social Council, the proposal for the Decade was transmitted to the United Nations General
Assembly, which approved the proposed Decade’s four main objectives and proclaimed the
World Decade for Cultural Development at its forty-first session:

94. Final Report, UNESCO World Conferenceon Cultural Policies, p. 78.

95. Ibid.
96. 22 C/Resolution 11.20adoptedby the GeneralConferenceof UNESCO at its 22nd session,1983.
97. The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)is one of the main organs of the United Nations, together
with the Security Council, the GeneralAssemblyandthe Secretariat.
 - 38 -

‘Proclaims the period 1988-1997 the World Decade for Cultural Development, to be
observed under the auspices of the United Nations and the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization;

Invites all States, intergovernmental and international non-governmental organizations,

and interested individuals to take an active part in the fulfilment of the objectives of the
Decade [. . .]‘.98

The proclamation thus urged the entire international community to take part in the
Decade: Member States, intergovernmental organizations, international non-governmental
organizations, and organizations of the United Nations system, including UNESCO. It should
be noted, however, that responsibility for implementing the Decade lay primarily with
UNESCO.

The Decade was to have three co-ordinating mechanisms under UNESCO’s authority:
the Intergovernmental Committee, the Intersectoral Co-ordinating Committee and the
Secretariat of the Decade. The mandate of the Intergovernmental Committee was to promote
and evaluate implementation of the Plan of Action for the Decade and to recommend the most
appropriate action to ensure its success. The task of the Intersectoral Co-ordinating Committee
was to co-ordinate the activities of UNESCO’s various sectors. The Secretariat was
responsible, inter alia, for liaising with international organizations and organizations of the
United Nations system, including UNESCO, and carrying out support and public information
activities.

At country level, it was suggested that National Committees for the Decade be set up to
co-ordinate national implementation. The organizations of the United Nations system, for
their part, appointed a co-ordinator to liaise with UNESCO.

Basic guidelines for a ‘development’ strategy

The crux of the matter: towards a new approach to development

The World Decade for Cultural Development was a product of the humanist concern to
promote people-centred ‘development’. It was to serve as a kind of corrective to conventional
‘modemization’ strategies by incorporating cultural factors:

‘This determination to move forward stems above all from the difficulties inherent in
the type of development strategies pursued since the end of the Second World War.
Despite the progress achieved, the results of the first two International Development
decades revealed the limitations of a development concept based primarily on
quantitative and material growth’ .99

Basic premises of the new approach were enhancement of the endogenous element,
recognition of the aspirations of populations, and awareness of the qualitative dimension and
the context or real circumstances in which ‘development’ action was to be carried out. The
failure of strategies was attributed to neglect of these factors:

98. General Assembly resolution 41/187. See A practical guide to the World Decade for Cultural
Development 1988-97, UNESCO, Paris, 1967,pp. 62-64.
99. A practical guide . . , p. 13.
 - 39 -

‘Contact with hard realities led to the emergence of a simple idea: well-being, progress
and happiness cannot be imported in accordance with a pre-established plan and a
standard pattern. No development project worthy of the name can ignore the essential
characteristics of the natural and cultural environment, the needs, aspirations and the
values of the populations concerned’. loo

The Decade was thus launched as an initiative applicable to ‘development’ projects, the
aim being to incorporate factors that had been left out of account in economistic approaches.
The basic idea was to achieve ‘modemization’ while preserving cultural identities and
involving communities in the process, and to develop a new approach to the task of
progressing towards the Western model, -minimizing the risk of failure and ensuring the
sustainability of reform. Convinced that success depended on taking otherness and other
cultures into account, UNESCO proposed the proclamation of the Decade with, as its starting-
point, the idea of a new approach in which culture would play a central role as the resource
that stimulates change.

Definitions of culture and development

Given the new approach to ‘development’ advocated by the Decade and the resultant
linkage of culture and ‘modemization’, it seems appropriate to take a closer look at the ideas
contained in the Plan of Action”’ and the Strategy for the Implementation of the Plan of
Action,lo2 the documents that lay down guidelines for action by all participants. The former
establishes the four main objectives of the Decade and the latter derives six key areas from the
Plan of Action objectives.

Before considering the guiding principles set forth in these documents, especially in the
Plan of Action, we feel it may be useful to examine the definitions of culture and
‘development’ used to establish the guidelines for action. Several different definitions may be
identified in the case of culture , while a broad and basically unchanging criterion exists in the
case of ‘development’.

The definition of culture to be found in the Plan of Action is a broad concept involving
ways of thinking, living and feeling:

‘[. . .] a way of existence, of perceiving and of perceiving oneself, a way of feeling, of

expressing oneself, of creating, which characterizes the deeply original qualities of
societies’. lo3

This definition of culture encompasses the whole range of features from which a people
derives its distinctive character. In our view, it is more comprehensive than the enumerative
definition adopted at MONDIACULT,‘04 containing as it does the idea of a process, since it
refers in general terms to creative ability, from which we may infer that such an ability is
recognized as a factor in fresh thinking on the basis of knowledge, and in innovation that may
generate change.

100. Ibid., p. 15.

101. ‘World Decade for Cultural Development 1988-1997 - Plan of Action’, UNESCO, Paris, 1990
(CC-89/WS-20).
102. ‘World Decadefor Cultural Development 1988-1997- Strategyfor the Implementationof the Plan of
Action’, UNESCO, Paris, 1990(CC-89/W%18).
103. Plan ofAction, p. 9, para. 24.
 - 40 -

But this definition of culture as a process was accompanied by two definitions in the
Strategy for the Implementation of the Plan of Action, one of which is broad and the other
restrictive:

‘The first, which is more restrictive, may be considered to refer to intellectual and
artistic activity in the fields of literature, music, art, dance, etc., or of its reception and
dissemination [. . .]. The second [. . .] refers to culture in a considerably wider sense, [. . .]
including beliefs, mentalities, attitudes, customs, rules of conduct, social relations - in
other words, everything that constitutes the specific characteristics and originality of a
people or a community’.105

As these definitions of culture merely list its components, we may conclude from the
Strategy that culture is to be viewed as a product. To sum up, culture has been defined in a
number of different ways, broadly in some cases and restrictively in others, sometimes as a
process and sometimes as a product.

The concept of ‘development’ has also been defined in broad terms, incorporating a
qualitative dimension designed to ‘bring about the well-being of societies and ensure the
flowering of their cultures, the strengthening of the sense of human and social values’.‘06 This
definition betokens a form of ‘development’ that does not consist solely in technological
progress and economic growth but is endowed with a humanizing dimension so that it
presents a global picture in which GDP growth is supplemented by social and cultural factors.

The four main objectives

Having examined some of the definitions, we shall now turn to the guidelines for the
Decade. In that connection, attention should be drawn to two basic policy principles which
determined the kind of action that needed to be taken in order to achieve the four main
objectives set forth in the Plan of Action document.

According to the document, the idea of holding a World Decade for Cultural
Development reflected a twofold concern:

‘[. . .] how to promote greater consideration of the cultural dimension in development

processes, and how to stimulate creative aptitudes and cultural life in general’.lo7

This twofold concern gave rise to two basic policy principles. The first, relating to
recognition of the cultural dimension of ‘modemization’, sought to promote a new approach
to ‘development’ policies and projects that took this dimension into account. The second,
relating specifically to the area of culture, emphasized the strengthening of cultural policies
with a view to safeguarding the heritage, preserving identity, stimulating creativity, etc.

The four main objectives of the Plan of Action were derived from the basic policy
principles:

1. Acknowledgement of the cultural dimension of development;

104. The World Conference on Cultural Policies held in Mexico City in 1962 is also known as
MONDIACULT.
105. ‘Strategyfor the Implementationof the Plan of Action’, p. 7, para.5.
106. Plan of Action, p. 8, para.20.
107. Plan of Action, p. 7, para. 15. Seealso the Strategyfor the Implementationof the Plan of Action, pp. 7-8,
paras.4 and 7.
 -4l-

2. Affirmation and enrichment of cultural identities;

3. Broadening participation in culture;

4. Promotion of international cultural co-operation. lo8

According to the Plan of Action and Strategy documents,“’ the first objective derives
from the first policy principle and the other three objectives from the second. Moreover, the
first and second objectives correspond to a broader definition of culture and the third and
fourth to a narrower definition.’ lo

Before examining the main objectives of the Decade individually, we wish to draw a
distinction between two analytical approaches, which we shall call the development-oriented
and the cultural approach. The development-oriented approach views culture in terms of its
relationship to ‘development’ strategies and projects and other aspects of the ‘modemization’
process, such as participation and creativity.

The cultural approach relates specifically to culture and cultural activities in traditional
areas such as preservation of the heritage, promotion of artistic creativity and cultural
exchanges. Although the cultural approach may thus seem unrelated to development, it may
also be viewed, from a more integrated standpoint, as an aesthetic and spiritual supplement in
a context of economic and technological primacy. The cultural approach may therefore be
interpreted as one that treats culture as a supplement added to the exclusively materialistic
content of ‘development’ projects.

We shall now examine the four main objectives of the Plan of Action in the light of
these two approaches, seeking to identify specific lines of emphasis, focusing on the concept
of culture and its relationship to development, and looking for traces of the emergence of a
new ‘modemizing’ approach, which is the basic justification for the Decade.

Acknowledgement of the cultural dimension of development

‘In the context of the Decade, acknowledgement of the cultural dimension of

development [...I will be the result of recognition of the cultural aspects of all activities
,111
connected with economic, social, scientific and technological development.

This quotation refers to the Decade’s main objective, which is supplemented by the
other three. It is designed to promote the incorporation of a cultural element in
‘modemization’ plans, strategies and projects. In this way, cultural factors are transported, as
it were, from their position of isolation and become part of an integrated approach under the
heading of ‘development’. The purpose of this incorporation is to promote a process of change
in keeping with environmental and cultural realities, which it is believed will foster the
successful implementation and sustainability of proposed reforms.

According to the Plan of Action, acknowledgement of the cultural dimension involves

taking into account populations’ habits, needs and expectations and assessing the cultural
impact of change. It also involves making proper use of local natural and human resources and
skills and investigating ways of living, customs, beliefs and traditional technology from the

108. Plan of Action, p. 8, para. 18.

109. Ibid., pp. 7-8, paras.16 and 17. Strategyfor the Implementationof the Plan of Action, p. 8, para.7.
110. &ate,7 for the Implementation. . ., p. 8, para.7.
111. Plan of Action, p. 15, para. 42. ’
 - 42 -

standpoint of their coexistence with ‘modem’ elements so that the introduction of such
elements may be facilitated.

The first objective is based on certain assumptions: participation of populations in

projects, combination of so-called traditional or internal factors with external factors and use
of creative potential:

‘[. . .] it is now essential in any development strategy to draw upon all society’s
potential for creativity, innovation and inventiveness, both individual and
collective’.“2

Acknowledgement of the cultural dimension further implies the development of new

patterns of behaviour conducive to the more effective implementation of projects in other
areas such as the environment, health and education, Culture must be integrated into these
areas and, more particularly, into the area of science. The Plan of Action specifically proposes
a new relationship between science and culture, which are no longer to be treated separately
but as complementary domains, so that scientific advances may coexist with traditional
factors:

‘The activities envisaged in connection with the Decade will therefore be aimed at
harnessing scientific potential to people’s needs while ensuring the controlled
integration of science into cultural experience’.’ l3

It is also important to note that the first objective is based on a broad definition of
culture and, in our view, on an implicit interpretation of culture as a process, as cultural
factors as an integral part of the dynamic process of change leading to ‘development’. It
follows that there is an underlying assumption that culture is a process when it is viewed in
relation to development.

AfJirmation and enrichment of cultural identities

The second objective of the Plan of action concerns the affirmation and preservation of
the distinctive characteristics of each people: its heritage, beliefs and values. This concern
stems, on the one hand, from a fear that neglect of these characteristics may lead to rejection
of ‘development’ projects and, on the other, from the need to protect cultural diversity from
the threat posed by increasing uniformity of lifestyles, especially as a result of advances in
communication technology.

According to the Plan of Action, however, the reassertion of distinctiveness through

identity is an open-ended notion, which can incorporate ‘modemizing’ ingredients without
jeopardizing identity. The idea is to strike a balance that will allow distinctive characteristics
to coexist with the values of the Western model. Both extremes are ruled out: indiscriminate
implantation of the ‘development’ paradigm and blind allegiance to so-called traditional
practices or customs with no external input.

It follows that identity should not be averse to the possibility of opening up to other
cultures. On the contrary, contact is held to be a means of preserving vitality. The ideal to be
pursued is what the Plan of Action document calls the creative evolution of culture, a type of

112. Ibid
113. Ibid., p. 18,para.55.
 -43 -

change based on the coming together of individually distinctive and ‘modem’ characteristics
in a creative dynamic process.

In addition, the second objective of the Decade is concerned to protect the natural and
cultural heritage. In the case of the cultural heritage, the Plan of Action maintains the concept
used since the Mexico City Conference, which includes tangible and intangible components:

‘The cultural heritage of a people includes [. . .] both tangible and intangible works
through which the creativity of that people finds expression: languages, rites, beliefs,
historic places and monuments, literature, works of art, archives and libraries’.’ l4

This enumerative definition is based, in our view, on an interpretation of culture as a product.

But the inference to be drawn from the principle of combining internal or so-called traditional
inputs with ‘modem’ inputs is that culture is a process. Moreover, while the idea of
preservation of the heritage is a product of the cultural approach, that of creative evolution of
cultures belongs more appropriately under the heading of the development-oriented approach.

Broadening of participation in culture

As one of the canons of the new approach to ‘development’ projects, participation plays
a very important role in the four main objectives of the Plan of Action for the Decade. It
encompasses creativity and artistic creation, access to cultural goods and services and
participation in cultural life.

It should be noted that the concepts of access and participation underlying this objective
draw on the definitions set forth in the Recommendation on participation by the people at
large in cultural life and their contribution to it. A wider definition of culture is used in both
cases:

‘(a) by access to culture is meant the concrete opportunities available to everyone, in

particular through the creation of the appropriate socio-economic conditions, for
freely obtaining information, training, knowledge and understanding, and for
enjoying cultural values and cultural property;

(b) by participation in cultural life is meant the concrete opportunities guaranteed for
all - groups and individuals - to express themselves freely, to communicate, act,
and engage in creative activities with a view to the full development of their
personalities, a harmonious life and the cultural progress of society’.“’

Although the existence of a restrictive definition of culture in this objective was noted in
the Strategy for the Implementation of the Plan of Action, a wider definition is also
discernible. We may therefore view access and participation as a product of the development-
oriented approach, because they both further the process of change by providing access to
training, information and knowledge, and by offering the opportunity to express oneself and
engage in creative activities. All this should, in theory, promote the involvement of
populations in ‘development’ processes in the light of their particular needs and aspirations.

The concepts of access and participation may also be viewed in terms of the cultural
approach when they relate to traditional items or branches of culture, for example access to

114. Final Report, ‘Mexico City Declarationon Cultural Policies’, p. 43, para. 23.
115. Recommendationon participation by the people at large in cultural life and their contribution to it,
adoptedby the GeneralConferenceof UNESCO at its 19th session,Paris, 1976.
 - 44 -

works of art or participation as a creative factor conducive to the emergence of new forms of
art.

(a) Creation and creativity

Creation and creativity, which form part of the third objective, merit special attention.
According to the Plan of Action, both may be generated by participation. The concept of
creation is essentially limited to traditional artistic production (handicrafts) and intellectual
artistic production:

‘[. . .] it is accordingly essential to devise and apply new ways of stimulating artistic and
intellectual creation, both popular and “highbrow”, traditional and modem’.‘16

The Plan of Action advocates a new approach to these categories of creation whereby
artistic activity would be linked to daily life, or to areas such as the environment, with a view
to ‘strengthening the role of artists in society’l17 as producers of messages that are capable of
influencing the existing order. The artist is thus viewed as possessing powers of inducement
and persuasion capable of influencing existing circumstances and also, in our view, as an
example of spiritual fulfilment, counterbalancing the materialism of daily life and narrowing
‘the gap [. . .] between art and life’.118

It should further be noted that the concept of creation thus corresponds to a restrictive
definition of culture, since it relates basically to the arts, and its practitioners are primarily
artists. It is also a product of the cultural approach, while creativity falls under the heading of
the development-oriented approach.

The first two objectives treat creativity as a source of ‘modemizing’ change. This may
be gathered from our discussion of acknowledgement of the cultural dimension of
‘development’. The same applies to the second objective, whereby creativity is a mobilizing
factor, open to outside inputs, whose inventive capacity is supposed to promote the creative
evolution of cultures, maintaining balance between internal values and outside factors.

According to the Plan of Action, creativity is associated with a broad definition of

culture involving other sectors and areas of ‘development’:

‘Experiments aimed at liberating the creativity of individuals and groups might be

launched with a view to promoting individual and collective self-expression in the
specifically cultural field or in the wider field of education, the media, the natural
environment, and the living and working environment’. ’I9

Creativity is thus the product of participation by populations who wish to involve

themselves in their own ‘modemization’ process through innovative inputs combining internal
and external inputs. It may therefore be concluded that it constitutes a vital component of any
‘development’ strategy or project.

116. plan of Action, p. 26, para.88.

117. Ibid, p. 29, para. 97.
118. Ibid.
119. Ibid., p. 29, para. 98.
 -45 -

Promotion of international cultural co-operation

The notion of cultural co-operation in the Plan of Action is based on the Declaration of
the Principles of International Cultural Co-operation, according to which it should cover ‘all
aspects of intellectual and creative activities relating to education, science and culture’.‘20 The
Plan of Action adds communication to the list. Promotion of co-operation is based on the
assumption that all cultures are equal and that equitable links need to be forged between so-
called developed and developing countries.

Viewed in this light, co-operation may be associated with a broad definition of culture,
notwithstanding the reference to a restrictive definition in the Strategy for the Implementation
of the Plan of Action. Moreover, both approaches that we have mentioned throughout out
analysis are discernible in this objective. Applying the development-oriented approach, we
may infer that co-operation is a means of obtaining knowledge and technology, which will
encourage its acceptance by specific cultures as a factor conducive to change, since co-
operation:

‘[. . .] promotes the advancement of knowledge and enhancement of the creativity of

individuals and of peoples’.121

Adopting the cultural approach, we find that co-operation is a means of promoting

knowledge of cultures and intercultural understanding and dialogue, with a view to fostering
mutual respect and acceptance of particularities, and countering prejudice and intolerance.

General comments on the objectives of the Plan of Action

We may broadly conclude that aspects of both the cultural approach and the
development-oriented approach are to be found in the objectives of broadening participation
in cultural life, affirmation of identity and promotion of international cultural co-operation.
The first objective, however, reflects an exclusively development-oriented approach. It should
further be noted that, although the Strategy finds that objectives 3 and 4 reflect a restrictive
definition of culture, we were able to discover elements of a broader definition in both.

Moreover, the development-oriented approach treats culture as a process, that is to say,

as something capable of promoting change. We observed this, for example, in connection with
the creative potential of populations which enables them to accommodate external inputs
without rejecting internal inputs. This is what the Plan of Action calls the creative evolution of
cultures. Viewed in this light, culture inclines towards ‘development’, and does so exclusively
on the basis of a process and in conjunction with the corresponding values.

By contrast, when an objective corresponds to the cultural approach, culture is defined

as a product. For example, when we refer to artistic creation, our interest focuses on the
product of creative activity as a transmitter of messages. Likewise, when we refer to
preservation of the heritage, the aim is to protect cultural property. It follows that when culture
is treated as a product, it is perceived in terms of the cultural act itself, the work, and when it
is treated as a process, it is perceived as a source of movement involving the subject or
originator of the cultural act.

120. Declarationof the Principles of InternationalCultural Co-operationadoptedby the GeneralConferenceof

UNSECO at its fourteenthsession,1966.
121. Plan of Action, p. 32, para. 108.
 - 46 -

It is through its mobilizing potential that culture is absorbed into the new approach to
‘development’ proposed by the Decade. Bearing this fundamental parameter in mind, we have
attempted to develop our own strategy based on information drawn from our analysis of the
development-oriented approach.

This gives rise to the following paradigm:

Co-operation + identity + participation/creativity = ‘development’

(external input) (internal input)

The process begins with the presence of ‘development’ values or the external input
provided through co-operation. The next step consists in introducing the model, taking into
account, however, the cultural particulars of the situation to be ‘modemized’. It may be
described as a context-sensitive process of introduction, which at the same time justifies the
participation of populations as agents and not mere beneficiaries. Participation leads to
creative assimilation through the combination of modem values with so-called traditional or
distinctive values, and the process moves from there towards ‘development’.

Lastly, by way of comparison with the strategies for change mentioned in Chapter 1, we
may note that co-operation and participation also feature in this context but with a different
emphasis, inasmuch as co-operation is not restricted to the notion of a transfer from outside
but presupposes coexistence with an internal factor. Participation, meanwhile, is not viewed in
terms of access but involves a creative factor, the self-expression of populations in this type of
activity. With regard to political will, it may be noted that the Plan of Action contains a
number of suggestions for implementation of the Decade objectives by states. Thus, political
will also constitutes a fundamental resource for the Decade strategy since adoption of the new
approach depends on the exercise of political will at the national level.

Priority themes and fields of action established in the course of the Decade

In the course of the World Decade for Cultural Development, priority themes or areas
have been established with a view to directing action towards specific goals. Efforts are to be
focused on particular areas to ensure effective compliance with the policy principles of the
Decade and to avoid the dilution of efforts and resources, as noted in the Strategy for the
Implementation of the Plan of Action.‘22 In our study of these areas, we shall seek to
determine whether they correspond to the development-oriented approach or the cultural
approach, as previously defined. We shall then try to draw general conclusions regarding the
direction in which the Decade is proceeding towards its main objective, namely,
acknowledgement of the cultural dimension of ‘development’.

We shall first examine the key areas identified in the Strategy for the implementation of
the Plan of Action and the four areas of action of the International Programme for the World
Decade for Cultural Development. We shall then turn to the guidelines proposed in
resolution 3.2 adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO at its 27th session, the themes
proposed for the second half of the Decade in the light of the evaluation exercise, and those
established for the last biennium, i.e. the period 1996-1997. Lastly, we shall take a look at the
annual themes established for the World Day for Cultural Development.

122. Strategyfor the Implementationof the Plan of Action, p. 8, para. 8.

 - 47 -

Strategy for the implementation of the Plan of Action

At its 24th session in 1987, the General Conference of UNESCO requested the
Secretariat to prepare a draft strategy for the implementation of the Plan of Action for the
Decade. The strategy that was subsequently adopted established the following six key areas or
action priorities:

1. Acknowledging the cultural dimension in development;

2. Relations between culture, science and technology;

3. Preservation of the cultural heritage;

4. Man and the mediasphere;

5. Participation in cultural life and in development;

6. Stimulation of artistic creation and creativity.

These areas are derived from the Plan of Action, basically from the first three objectives.
In general, they correspond to a broad definition of culture, except for key area 6 concerning
the arts. While there is a tendency to give priority to activities that link culture with other
sectors, such as culture/‘development’ and culture/science and technology, one also detects a
tendency to promote traditional activities such as stimulation of artistic creation and
preservation of the heritage. It should further be noted that participation and the media both
constitute action priorities. Key areas 3 and 6 reflect the cultural approach and areas 1 and 2
the development-oriented approach; areas 4 and 5 contain aspects of both. It follows that the
two approaches are relatively balanced, with a slight bias towards the development-oriented
approach.

The International Programme for the World Decade for Cultural Development

The International Programme for the World Decade for Cultural Development, adopted
by the General Conference of UNESCO at its 25th session, was introduced on an
experimental basis for the 1992-1993 biennium and was not extended. It comprised the
following four areas of action based on proposals by the Intergovernmental Committee for the
Decade and the Executive Board of UNESCO:

1. Cultural factors in management and development;

2. Tourism, culture and development;

3. Cultural pluralism towards the year 2000;

4. Technology, cultural industries and development. 123

Of these four areas, those concerning tourism and cultural pluralism stand out as areas
of action attracting high priority; in other words, there is an apparent increase in the
importance attached to multiculturalism and the tourism branch in the context of the Decade.

123. Approved Programme and Budget for 1992-1993, UNESCO, Paris, p. 102, para.03012 (26 Cl5
Approved).
 - 48 -

Moreover, the cultural factors relate to the cultural dimension of ‘development’ and are
therefore derived from the first objective of the Plan of Action and key area 1 of the Strategy.

It should further be noted that the first two areas of action reflect the development-
oriented approach and the other two, concerning knowledge of cultures and promotion of
cultural industries, reflect the cultural approach. The two approaches are therefore balanced.

27 CYUesolution 3.2 of the General Conference

In resolution 3.2 adopted at its 27th session, the General Conference of UNESC0124
invited Member States and international organizations to implement large-scale projects for
the Decade on the following themes:

- tourism, culture and development;

- culture, development and technology: cultural industries;

- cultural pluralism looking towards the year 2000.

Member States and international organizations were also urged to attach more
importance to projects corresponding to the first objective.

The activities proposed by this resolution are broadly the same as the areas of action of
the International Programme. Attention should therefore be drawn again to the growing
interest in activities under the heading of tourism and cultural pluralism as the Decade
proceeds.

Mid-Term Summary Evaluation Report

In the light of a review of progress during the first half of the Decade, a number of
themes were proposed for implementation under the Plan of Action during the second half.

It was decided on the basis of the evaluation that priority should be given to the first
objective of the Decade and that specific themes should be selected. In the light of responses
to questionnaires and the deliberations of the General Conference, three main areas of action
were established:

- culture, tourism and development;

- cultural industries in the developing countries;

- cultural pluralism and development.

The areas proposed in the International Programme are therefore reaffirmed. However,
more options are available in this case and the additional themes suggested include culture,
environment and ‘development’, culture, science and ‘development’, culture, democracy and
‘development’, and also the relationship between culture and such branches of ‘development’
as agriculture, town planning and health.

124. ‘Resolutions’,Records of the General Confereke - 27th Session, Vol. 1, p. 38

 - 49 -

In view of the marked trend towards activities linking culture with branches of
‘development’, we may take it that the conclusions of the mid-term summary evaluation
report reflect for the most part a development-oriented approach.

Fields of action for the final biennium

The second extraordinary session of the Intergovernmental Committee of the World

Decade for Cultural Development, 125held in 1995, established the following priority fields of
action for the final biennium, namely, the period 1996-l 997:

1. cultural dimension of development;

2. culture and sustainability;

3. culture, tourism and development;

4. cultural pluralism;

5. investing in culture;

6. culture, science and technology and the media.

We may note the repetition of fields 1, 3 and 4, and the high priority given to the
relationship between culture and the environment (field 2) and to field 6, which echoes key
areas 2 and 4 of the Strategy for the Implementation of the Plan of Action. A theme we have
not met before is investment in culture. The majority of these fields reflect the development-
oriented approach, but fields 4 and 5 may be viewed as the product of a cultural approach.

World Day for Cultural Development

The General Conference of UNESCO, at its 26th session, endorsed the idea of
proclaiming 21 May of each year a World Day for Cultural Development,‘26 focusing on
annual themes relating culture to other sectors:

1992 - Culture and the environment;

1993 - Culture, education and work;

1994 - Culture and development;

1995 - Culture and agriculture;

1996 - Culture and health;

1997 - Culture and technology: the arts, science and communication.

The annual themes were selected in the light of the first objective of the Decade with a
view to promoting action aimed at integrating cultural factors into key ‘development’ areas:
health, the environment, agriculture, etc. The purpose of celebrating a World Day on 21 May
was to promote discussion and reflection on various topics through international meetings,

125. Final Report, IntergovernmentalCommittee of the World Decade for Cultural Development,Second
ExtraordinarySession,UNESCO, Paris, 1995.
126. Resolution3.2 adoptedby the GeneralConferenceat its 26th session.
 - 50 -

which were held in a different region each year. Asia, as the first region in the series, hosted a
meeting on culture and the environment in Indonesia. Then came Latin America and the
Caribbean, which hosted the 1993 World Day meeting in Mexico City. A Seminar on ‘Culture
and Development’ was held in Harare, Africa, in 1994. The 1995 World Day meeting was
hosted by the Arab States region in Egypt, and Thailand offered to host the ‘Culture and
Health’ Symposium in 1996.

General comments

The proposed areas of action for the Decade remain the same in some cases and are
modified in others. The first category includes, first and foremost, the cultural dimension of
‘development’, which is maintained as a priority field of action until the final biennium. Other
ongoing areas are those related to tourism, cultural pluralism and cultural industries.

Some themes, however, such as culture and sustainability and investing in culture, add a
new dimension to the proposed areas of action. Other themes proposed at the outset, such as
promotion of the arts, preservation of the heritage and participation in cultural life, are
dropped later on. The themes of the World Day for Cultural Development also fall into a
separate category, inasmuch as they are exclusively concerned with the relationship between
culture and other sectors.

The areas of action that reflect the development-oriented approach attach importance to
the cultural dimension, the relationship between culture and other areas (in the case of the
World Day), and the relationship between culture and science and technology, the
environment (sustainability) and tourism. In this connection, it is interesting to note the
importance attached to tourism as a Decade area of action because of its status as an industry
that yields dividends and can therefore be converted into a source of productivity. From the
standpoint of ‘development’, tourism provides the so-called countries of the South with
resources and opportunities that they can exploit as a source of profit without needing to
import technology or other external inputs, since they can rely fully on their domestic
potential in the form of cultural and natural assets.

The areas of action that reflect the cultural approach are, broadly speaking, the arts, the
heritage, cultural pluralism and investment in culture. The last two merit special attention.
Cultural pluralism may reflect a concern to counter the phenomenon of inter-ethnic conflict
that has afflicted certain countries, especially in Africa and Europe, during the course of the
Decade. These conflicts may have prompted the establishment of an area of action designed to
promote intercultural coexistence and dialogue.

Investment in culture is an area that has gradually been gaining ground as a source of
funding for cultural activities and cultural production (for example, the marketing of
handicrafts).

It is important to note the role of culture as a productive resource in the tourist industry
and in the field of investment. There is also a feedback element, since tourism as a
‘development’ industry uses cultural potential as a raw material, while culture uses economic
aspects of ‘development’ to influence cultural investment.
 -5l-

Development strategy

Earlier in this study, specifically in our analysis of the Plan of Action, we outlined a
preliminary development strategy involving aspects of the four main objectives: external input
(co-operation), internal input (identity), participation and creation.

However, as the Decade proceeded, new inputs emerged, so that the approach became
more complicated and even suffered a setback. As a result, the project was no longer based on
‘development’ and the introduction of ‘modem’ values but on prevailing cultural
circumstances.

Prior to this, the concepts of ‘development’ and identity had undergone a number of
changes, the former being interpreted on the basis of a flexible definition and the latter on the
basis of the concept of cultural confidence. But let us first take a look at the definition that
emerges from the report on the cultural dimension of development prepared by a Working
Group set up by the Intergovernmental Committee of the World Decade for Cultural
Development. Under the heading of ‘development’, it stresses the need for:

‘[. . .] a multicultural and pluralistic conception in which different ways of living,

different belief;Ttems, values are accommodated to reach the ultimate goals of various
communities .

This definition is based on the idea of pluralist ‘development’, a form of ‘development’

that accommodates different kinds of arrangements, depending on the distinctive features of
each population. As a result, ‘modemization’ through the scrupulous transfer of external
values is replaced by a process of adaptation to internal factors.

It should be noted in this connection that a seminar was held in Harare, Zimbabwe, in
1994 on culture and development, the theme of that year’s World Day for Cultural
Development. The participants in the seminar ‘concluded that [...I each nation or human
community should be entitled to its own model of development’.‘** This tendency to advocate
not just one but many different approaches to change is validated by the situation in many
Asian countries, which have made -spectacular progress towards ‘development’ in recent years
while keeping aspects of their own culture intact.

We should also note the emergence of a definition of cultural confidence. We mentioned

this notion in the last chapter as the factor that ostensibly promotes take-off - the trigger that
sparks off the process of change. This implies the existence of a driving force within culture -
the basis for what we have called culture as an instrument - so that it may be acknowledged as
the basis of every ‘development’ project.

Cultural confidence is held to be associated with a sense of security among populations

with respect to their values, so that they can preserve what is theirs and at the same time take
advantage of anything external that they find interesting. It constitutes a process of
reinterpretation of ‘modernity’ in the light of particular circumstances or what are called
traditional values.

127. Report of the Working Group on the cultural dimensionof development.Final Report, Intergovernmental
Committee of the World Decade for Cultural Development,Second Regular Session,Annex IV, p. 3
(GC/MD/12).
128. Yvonne Timmerman, ‘Harare Seminar on Culture and Development’, in Culture Plus, No. 14, 1994,
p. 19.
 - 52 -

It may be inferred from the foregoing that the shifts of emphasis that occurred during the
course of the Decade enhanced the role of culture vis-a-vis ‘development’, so that the
definition of the latter even assimilated elements of the former. In addition, the enhanced
status of culture led to the conclusion that ‘development’ constituted a dimension of culture.
In this connection, the World Commission on Culture and Development proposed, in the
words of Yoro Fall, a paradigm shift that would make ‘development’ a dimension of culture,
rather than culture a dimension of ‘development’.‘29

This theoretical turnaround also has practical connotations which are reflected in a
reversal of the ‘modemizing’ approach, so that culture or context - a population’s needs and
aspirations - are henceforth viewed as the starting-point for any process of change. According
to the publication The cultural dimension of development - Towards a practical approach:

‘The question is whether [. . .] this should be regarded as the start of a shift in outlook, in
which development problems are approached through cultural realities rather than vice
versa , . 130

The new paradigm

In the light of the foregoing, we have attempted to develop a paradigm that reflects the
Decade approach to the process ,of change. It differs in structure from the paradigm presented
at the beginning of this chapter, which was based on the objectives of the Plan of Action:

Context + confidence + external input + participation + reinterpretation =

(cultural) (cultural) creation
other forms of ‘development’.

Broadly speaking, the strategy which, in our view, has evolved over the years of the
Decade takes as its starting-point internal realities with their associated value systems and
beliefs and adds to these the driving force of culture or cultural confidence, thus laying the
basis for the selection of ‘modem’ values (external input) which, when adapted to internal
factors and combined with participation and creative input, generate a process of
reinterpretation. This results in a form of ‘development’ that is theoretically in harmony with
the needs and aspirations of existing realities or populations.

129. ‘Developmentis a dimensionof culture andnot the reverse’,Yoro Fall, ‘In the beginning was culture’, in
UNESCO Sources,No. 74, November 1995,p. 15. Yoro Fall is a memberof the World Commissionon
Cultural and Development.
130. The cultural dimension of development ... . pp. 223-224.
 - 53 -

CHAPTER 4

DECADE ACTION IN SUPPORT OF THE NEW APPROACH

Achievement of the goals of the Decade called for the implementation of a wide variety
of activities, ranging from what might be called traditional activities (related to artistic
creation, preservation of the heritage, etc.) to activities linking culture to other areas, such as
agriculture, education and the environment and creating methodological tools for the practical
integration of cultural factors into ‘development’ projects. We wish to focus, however, on the
extent to which the proposed activities gave prominence to the first and primary objective
(acknowledgement of the cultural dimension of ‘development’) and fostered a new approach
based on participation, creativity, co-operation and other factors.

To that end, we shall refer to the mid-Decade evaluation report,131 which reviews
implementation of the Decade during the period 1988-1993. We shall then look at the
activities planned by UNESCO for the five biennia132 that coincided with the period of
implementation of the Decade. It should be noted that our study of the Organization’s planned
cultural activities for the World Decade for Cultural Development consists of a broad analysis
of its programmes. 133An exhaustive examination of the activities in question lies beyond the
scope of this study.

First phase: predominance of the cultural approach

A broad range of activities were undertaken during the early years of the Decade, from
1988 to 1993. They occasionally laid the legitimacy of the Decade open to question, since
many projects related to traditional cultural activities. For example, the mid-Decade
evaluation report questioned their innovative character, as may be gathered from the following
quotation:

‘[. . .] how can a precise dividing line be drawn between projects undertaken because of
the Decade and those that would have been proceeded with in any case, Decade or no
Decade?‘.‘34

At the same time, the evaluation report drew attention to problems impeding the
implementation of the Decade, attributing them to difficulties in understanding its premises,

131. Resolution44/238 of 22 December1989, adoptedby the United Nations GeneralAssembly at its forty-
fourth session,recommendedto the Director-Generalof UNESCO that he undertakean evaluationof the
implementationof the first half of the Decadein 1993. Resolution461157of 19 December1991, adopted
by the United Nations GeneralAssembly at its forty-fourth session,recommendedthe preparationof a
provisional evaluationof the implementationof the Decade,reviewingsome of its goals, selectinga more
limited numberof priorities and defining specific tasks for the secondphaseof the Decade.The mid-term
evaluation report was submitted to the United Nations GeneralAssembly at its forty-ninth sessionin
December1994.
132. Each UNESCO programmeof activities coversa two-yearperiod.
133. Broadly speaking,we shall attemptto analyseUNESCO’s projectsin the light of its biennialprogrammes.
We wish to make clear that we refer solely to the activities that were proposedin the programmes;we
have not sought to establish whetheror not they were implemented.In this connection,see UNESCO’s
Approved Programme and Budget documentsfor 19881989, 1990-1991,1992-1993, 1994-1995and
1996-1997.
134. ‘Examinationof the mid-term summaryevaluationreport on the Plan of Action for the Decadecalled for
under paragraph3.C of United Nations resolution A146/157 (forty-sixth session)‘, UNESCO,
IntergovernmentalCommittee of the World Decade for Cultural Development, Second Extraordinary
Session,p. 9, para. 66 (CLT-9YCONF~207IINF.6).
 - 54 -

international political and ideological changes, budgetary constraints and economic crises
which, in view of their scale, took precedence over the objectives of the Decade.

A certain lack of interest in the results of the first phase is also discernible, given the
poor response from participants to the request for information (written consultation) in
connection with the evaluation. Replies were received from only 41 Member States (11 in
Africa, 6 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2 in the Arab States region, 6 in Asia and the
Pacific and 16 in Europe and North America). Twelve organizations of the United Nations
system, 28 non-governmental organizations and four intergovernmental organizations also
responded.13’

Owing to the unsatisfactory response, especially on the part of Member States, the
report had to be supplemented by discussions at the 27th session of the General Conference
and studies by the Intergovernmental Committee of the World Decade for Cultural
Development and the Bureau of the Committee.

Looking at UNESCO’s programmes for the 1988-1989, 1990-1991 and 1992-1993

biennia, we find a large number of activities relating to the Decade, a significant proportion of
which reflect what we have called the cultural approach, namely, initiatives relating to the
heritage, artistic creation, knowledge of cultures, etc.

Other proposed activities may be said to reflect the development-oriented approach,

such as those linking culture to other areas or those related to creativity, participation and
similar factors. In some cases, however, they do not seem to support the proposed
‘development’ approach, or perhaps there are just fewer activities involved.

We shall consider this first phase, broadly speaking, in terms of the following
components:

(a) the participants;

(b) the activities implemented;

(c) the four main objectives;

(d) the scale of activities;

(e) the ‘development’ approach.

(a) In terms of the participants, action by Member States and the organizations of the
United Nations system fell short of expectations. For example, although the Plan of Action
recommended the establishment of National Committees for the Decade at country level, it
was found at the end of the first phase that only a few countries had set up the necessary
structures and that the committees which existed were not properly performing their role of
co-ordinating activities relating to Decade policy objectives at the national level. The
following quotation speaks for itself:

135. Ibid., p. 1, para. 6.

 - 55 -

‘Since 1987, 76 National Committees for the Decade have been set up in all the regions.
Some were founded only recently and they have not always performed the role of co-
ordination, stimulation and guidance of activities that was expected of them’. 136

The Venezuelan case may be cited as an example. Its Committee was appointed four
years after the inauguration of the Decade on the occasion of a visit to our country by the
Director-General of UNESCO. To date, no meeting of the Committee has been held.

The report goes on to note that scant attention was paid to the Decade by the
organizations of the United Nations system. For example, no mention was made of its main
objective in the strategy for the Fourth United Nations Development Decade:

‘It is significant [. . .] that there were practically no references to the concept of the
cultural dimension of development when the Fourth United Nations Development
Decade was adopted’.lj7

(b) In terms of the activities implemented, it is important to note that the evaluation
report observes a tendency to adopt a strictly cultural approach focusing on traditional
activities instead of the multidisciplinary approach proposed by the Plan of Action.

This tendency is also mentioned in an editorial in the publication Culture Plus, which
notes that Decade activities have been based on a narrow vision of what constitutes culture:

‘Many of our counterparts still tend to think of the Decade as promoting cultural events
and artistic expressions of different kinds, and conceive of culture mainly as the fine arts
rather than the way of life, behaviour and value systems of a human group’.13*

(c) In terms of the four main objectives of the Decade, the evaluation report notes
that, although acknowledgement of the cultural dimension of ‘development’ was the principal
objective, very few activities - compared with the other objectives - fell under that heading.
Most activities related to the second, third and fourth objectives, namely: affirmation and
enrichment of cultural identities, broadening of participation in cultural life and promotion of
international cultural co-operation.

(d) In terms of the scale of activities, it should be noted that a large number of
recommendations for activities under the Plan of Action concerned local activities and micro-
projects rather than large-scale initiatives. Thus, the Plan of Action proposed the launching of

‘[plrojects more modest in scope and cost [...I, first at the local and regional levels. It
seems easier to ensure the relevance of activities to the needs and aspirations of the
communities concerned at these levels’. 139

The Intergovernmental Committee of the World Decade for Cultural Development

expressed concern at the apparent preference for large-scale projects when it examined the
evaluation report on the first phase:

136. Ibid., p. 6, para. 40. An editorial in the newsletterpublishedby the Cuban Committeefor the Decadedrew
attention to this fact, noting that ‘Very few countriesin Latin America and the Caribbeanhave set up
National Committees as recommendedby the Plan of Action’, Cuban National Committee, Carta de1
Decenio, July 1991, p. 1.
137. Ibid., p. 10, para. 79.
138. Culture Plus, No. 12-13,UNESCO,Paris, 1994,p. 2.
139. Plan of Action, pp. 16-l 7, para.47.
 - 56-

‘With regard to the projects themselves, one delegate felt that the Secretariat ‘of the
Decade’ was concentrating too much on large-scale initiatives, underestimating the
importance of country-level projects whose impact was less noticeable but more
lasting’. 140

(e) The projects that we associated with the new approach to ‘development’ and with
the principles laid down in the Plan of Action were not given the prominence they deserved.
The factors involved in this new approach - and which we associated with the development-
oriented approach - are reflected as follows in the activities planned by UNESCO for the first
three biennia:

Co-operation relates for the most part to knowledge of cultures, or what is called
international understanding, achieved, inter alia, by means of intercultural projects (Silk
Roads, The Slave Route, The Maya World, etc.) and exchanges. In addition, joint activities
are carried out in certain areas. We omit from this category activities such as inter-university
co-operation arrangements (UNESCO Chairs, UNITWIN Network), which may have a
bearing on ‘development’ areas such as education and science through research and exchanges
of knowledge.

Activities under the heading of science mostly involve dissemination of scientific and
technological information. They thus relate to science as a self-contained discipline, despite
the emphasis placed in the Plan of Action on the relationship between culture and other areas,
in this case culture and science. Only one activity during the 1990-199 1 and 1992-1993
biennia reflects this kind of linkage. 14’

Participation is defined as ‘access’ and, in this sense, is basically confined, particularly

in the 1990-199 1 and 1992-1993 biennia, to activities that provide access in the form of
integration of migrants, access to means of education, etc. Fewer projects relate to promotion
of participation in the strict sense of the term.

The activities relating to creativity in the broad sense that we specified in the last
chapter were far fewer than those relating to artistic creation. Thus, only a single activity
related explicitly to the area of creativity in the 1990-199 1 and 1992-1993 biennia.‘42

The emphasis placed in the Plan of Action on combining internal knowledge with
external inputs (‘development’) was reflected in projects for the first biennium. Thereafter,
attention tended to shift to cultural values and their transmission, diversity and identity, and
other issues.

Although the main justification for the Decade was the idea of promoting a new
approach to ‘development’, areas of activity that would have contributed to that aim, such as
creativity or the relationship between culture and science, failed to receive the anticipated
coverage, or else attention was diverted to other aspects. For example, participation was
interpreted basically in terms of access, and co-operation was largely perceived in terms of
knowledge of cultures.

140. UNESCO, 1991.

141. See Approved Programme and Budget for 1990-1991, p. 217, para. 02315 (25 C/5 Approved), and
Approved Programme and Budgetfor 1992-1993,p. 84, para. 02306 (26 Cl5 Approved).
142. See Approved Programme and Budget for 1990-1991, p. 219, para. 03219 (25 C/5 Approved), and
Approved Programme andBudgetfor 1992-1993, p. 321, para. 02306 (26 C/5 Approved).
 - 57 -

However, a number of activities dealt with the relationship between cultural factors and
other areas such as education, the environment or population, and some sought to create
methodological tools that would facilitate the practical integration of the cultural dimension of
‘development’ into ‘modernization’ processes.

To conclude our review of the first phase, we wish to highlight the tendency noted in the
evaluation report to implement traditional cultural activities reflecting the cultural approach,
whereas, in the light of our analysis of the Plan of Action, emphasis should have been placed
on activities reflecting the development-oriented approach. These shortcomings were
acknowledged and the initiatives proposed for the second phase were adapted accordingly.

Second phase: vindication of the development-oriented approach

The progress report on the first phase of the Decade led to a number of policy changes, a
reduction in the number of priorities and the definition of specific tasks for the remainder of
the Decade. The evaluation report made the following broad recommendations:

(a> concentration on regional or inter-regional interdisciplinary and intercultural

projects;

@> assignment of priority to activities relating to the first objective -

acknowledgement of the cultural dimension of ‘development’ - and to innovative
projects likely to have a concrete impact on ‘development’;

(4 implementation of activities likely to facilitate understanding of the relationship

between culture and ‘development’ and to foster a practical approach to the first
objective;

Cd) promotion of partnerships between different bodies or sectors, such as public

authorities, communities, etc.;

(4 strengthening of action by Member States and National Commissions, non-

governmental organizations and organizations of the United Nations system,
especially by associating the latter with large-scale interdisciplinary projects;

03 sustained action by National Committees to co-ordinate activities with sectors

involved in ‘development’. 143

Unfortunately, no evaluation report is yet available on the second phase of the Decade,
inter ah because it has not yet come to an end. We shall therefore refer for the most part to
the activities proposed by UNESCO for the 1994-1995 and 1996-1997 biennia and, to a lesser
extent, to the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Committee. Overall, our study of the
proposed activities indicates a gradual refocusing of attention on a limited number of areas.

The following general comments may be made on the second phase:

(a) All parties concerned, i.e. organizations of the United Nations system, Member States
and other organizations, are urged to become more actively involved. In particular, closer CO-
operation with organizations of the United Nations system is recommended with a view to

143. ‘Examinationof the mid-term summaryevaluationreport . .‘, p. 16.

 - 58 -

including the cultural dimension of development in the strategy for the Fifth United Nations
Development Decade.‘44

(b) The projects tend to focus more on the first of the four main objectives -
acknowledgement of the cultural dimension of ‘development’ - than on the other three.

(c) Accordingly, they differ from traditional cultural activities, and the interdisciplinary
approach that henceforth prevails is reflected, for example, in activities that link culture to the
environment, population and education. In addition, greater importance is attached to
methodological factors. Activities relating to knowledge of cultures also play a prominent
role, especially in the form of intercultural and cultural tourism projects.

(d) Bearing in mind the underlying principles of the new ‘development’ approach, it may be
noted that:

There is no provision, at least in explicit terms, for activities relating to participation or

creativity, except for one project in the 1996-1997 biennium, which is unusual in that the
actors themselves are the beneficiaries,‘45 this being, in our view, a truly participatory project.
No comparable initiative is discernible in the previous biennia.

Most activities under the heading of co-operation seem to be either intercultural projects
(the Slave Route, Arabia Plan, Roads of Faith, etc.) designed to promote knowledge of
cultures or, as already noted, regional interdisciplinary projects in areas such as the
environment, population and education.

Two projects launched in the first phase and continued in the second phase are, in our
view, among the most important of all Decade activities: the project involving the
development of a methodology for the integration of cultural factors into ‘development’
processes146and the setting up of the World Commission for Culture and Development. Both
date from 1992.

A summary of the findings of methodological experiments conducted by various bodies

involved in ‘development’ work was published in the case of the first project. There are also
plans to publish a manual for planners and a practical guide for field workers. This is a
particularly important project inasmuch as it seeks to develop tools for the implementation of
‘modemization’ activities and to devise a practical approach to the first main objective of the
Decade.

The World Commission for Culture and Development was established for the purpose
of preparing a report on culture and development. This report constitutes the most recent
contribution to scholarship in the areas of cultural policies and is based on wide-ranging
consultations and research on the relationship between the ‘modemizing’ process and
preservation of identity, and on the coexistence of external inputs with internal or so-called
traditional knowledge.

144. Final Report, Intergovernmental

Committee of the World Decade for Cultural Development, second
extraordinarysession,1995,Annex II-A, p. 1 (CLT/MD/S).
145. The project consistedof an internationalsurvey of young people’s perception of violence on the screen
and was to be conductedby the young people themselves.Approved Programme and Budget for 1996
1997, pp. 133-134,para.04109 (28 C/5 Approved).
146. This is a three-stageproject spreadover a six-yearperiodbeginningin 1992.
 - 59 -

In conclusion, we wish to reiterate that the purpose of this chapter has been to offer a
simple and concise evaluation of the results of the Decade. This assessment reflects, in large
measure, the conclusions of our study, to which may be added the findings contained in
previous chapters.

We shall therefore close this study with our concluding thoughts on the matter,
introducing an element of anticipation based on the certainty that the concern we have aroused
will eventually result in a new project. Let us therefore proceed.
 -61 -

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

Rethinking development?

We began this study with a conceptual analysis of ‘development’ as an

‘unchallengeable’ model and of UNESCO’s vision of culture, and continued with reflections
on the World Decade for Cultural Development project, its objectives and activities, and,
above all, the ‘modemizing’ approach reflected in its underlying assumptions.

It is this ‘modemizing’ approach on which we now wish to focus. As yet another

attempt to humanize ‘development’, it claims to establish a people-centred approach to all
projects, ostensibly enhancing a community’s potential and taking into account ways of living
and thinking and the cultural context. It claims to transcend the economistic vision projected
by the traditional ‘modemization’ approach:

‘In other words, our main task could be called: Rethinking Development’.‘47

This theoretical rethinking process proceeded successfully, producing definitions that

endowed culture with global relevance, acknowledging it as the starting-point and a driving
force in the process of change. In practice, however, the potential of the Decade was diluted
by the adoption of four main objectives, and during the first phase there was a tendency to
concentrate on traditional cultural activities. An attempt was therefore made in the second
phase to focus on projects that contributed to the rethinking process, especially
interdisciplinary activities.

We believe we have shown, however, that, despite the introduction of humanizing

factors, the economistic approach retained its primacy. This is reflected in the perception of
culture as a source of productivity in the areas of cultural tourism and investment in culture,
which were selected as priority fields of action for the Decade. The most telling example of
this perception is a recommendation for action relating to the first objective - the cultural
dimension of ‘development’ - in connection with the issue of illegal settlements:

‘In Latin American cities, where squatting has occurred since the 1940s the informal
sector is an integral part of the urban economy and a positive contributor to economic
growth. It provides cheap labour on a sub-contract basis in exchange for market
outlets’.‘48

Paradoxically, this quotation comes from a Decade publication which is actually entitled
Rethinking Development. The emphasis placed on the notion of profitability is so extreme that
some proposals are entirely inconsistent with the humanizing principles underlying an
approach that is supposed to be people-centred and concerned with well-being. The idea of
providing ‘development’ with a human face is undermined and replaced by the goal of
productivity, to be achieved at the expense of acceptable working conditions. The
inconsistency of this approach is astounding and casts doubt on the feasibility of achieving
humanization through the proposed paradigm.

147. Cdture Plus, No. 12-13,UNESCO,Paris, 1994,p. 2.

148. Rethinking Development, pp. 1l- 12.
 - 62 -

Given that this kind of ‘development’ has proved incapable of eradicating the evils
besetting the modem world and that, notwithstanding all the efforts for more than twenty
years to integrate more human values - for example, social and cultural factors - into the
‘development’ process, its prime objective still holds sway,149 we find ourselves doubting
whether there is any ‘need’ to continue promoting ‘development’.

Furthermore, the ostensibly ‘unchallengeable’ nature of the Western paradigm, which is

held to be a people’s only path to ‘progress’, has led to the subordination of models which we
view as mutually supportive, such as ‘the traditional African tendencies of egalitarianism in
the allocation of the means of production and the widespread distribution of consumer goods
and profit.‘150 The predominance of ‘development’ rules out the possibility of contemplating
other really equitable and people-centred paradigms.

From change as a process to change as a project

To round off this study, we must tie up loose ends and clarify our position by attempting
(through an earnest quest motivated by our own uncertainty) to outline an idea which, though
smacking of non-conformity and sedition and lacking the docility of a humanized approach, is
sustained by a conviction that, while it may not unveil the truth or present a solution that
eradicates injustice and inequality once and for all and that contributes to human well-being, it
at least offers an alternative - another way of looking at the world in order to promote new
ways of living. So what is this alternative?

While others may consider that the solution lies in ‘development’, we believe that it lies
in culture. To that end, culture must be viewed as a process liberated from its rigid association
with the ‘modemizing’ paradigm and hence capable of fostering change conducive to more
mutually supportive lifestyles.

If this definition is applied, culture will not be debased as a product, but viewed
fundamentally as a process, and ultimately as a blueprint for change and the emergence of new
realities. To that end, creation must be an ongoing process and, by the same token, every actor
must be perceived as a creative being and an active participant in that reality. not as a means
of recreating the created (in accordance with the new Decade approach) but as an instrument
for the discovery of alternatives and the generation of innovative ideas and configurations,
some perhaps already imagined and others - why not? - as yet unthought of, but proceeding
from a passionate concern to shatter the paradigm of a so-called universal culture.

149. The 1995 publication The cultural dimension of development - Towards a practical approach,
acknowledgedthat ‘the importanceof the human and cultural objectives of developmentseemsfar from
the thoughtsof the major economicor political players’,p. 151.
150. Yoro Fall, ‘Multiple cultures,pluralist development’,in UNESCO Sources, No. 58, 1994,p. 9.
 - 63 -

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UNESCO, Third Medium-Term Plan (1990-1995), Paris, 1990,217 pp. (25 C/4 Approved).

UNESCO, Pierre Moulinier, Programme de l’UNESCO en mat&e de developpement

culturel: Presentation des travaux realises depuis 1960, Paris, 1990, 101 pp.

UNESCO, FinaZ Report, Intergovernmental Committee of the World Decade for Cultural
Development, First Extraordinary Session, Paris, 4-8 February 1991, 23 pp.
(CLT/MD/14).

UNESCO, Approved Programme and Budget for 1992-1993, Paris, January 1992, 351 pp.
(26 C/5 Approved).

UNESCO, ‘Resolutions’, Records of the General Conference, 26th Session, Paris, 1991,
Paris, Vol. 1, 1992, 166 pp.

UNESCO, Final Report, Intergovernmental Committee of the World Decade for Cultural
Development, Third Regular Session, Paris, 6- 10 April 1992, (CLT/MD/3).

UNESCO, Report of the Director-General 1990-1991, Paris, 1992,266 pp. (27 C/3).

UNESCO, ‘Resolutions’, Records of the General Conference, 27th Session, Paris, 1993,
Paris, Vol. 1, 1993, 138 pp.

UNESCO, Culture, Education and Work: Information kitfor the celebration of the World Day
for Cultural Development, 1993, Paris, 1993,38 pp. (CLTDECYPRO-93/l).

UNESCO, Final Report, International Conference on Education, 43rd Session, Geneva, 1992,
Paris, 1993,25 pp. (ED/MD/95).

UNESCO, Report of the Director-General 1992-1993, Paris, 1994,291 pp. (28 C/3).

UNESCO, Approved Programme and Budget for 1994-1995, Paris, January 1994, 319 pp.
(27 C/5 Approved).

UNESCO, Basic Texts - Manual of the General Conference and the Executive Board, Paris,
1994,208 pp.

UNESCO, Final Report, Intergovernmental Committee of the World Decade for Cultural
Development, Fourth Regular Session, Paris, 11-15 April 1994, (CLT/MD/4).
 - 66 -

UNESCO, Rethinking development - World Decade for Cultural Development 1988-1997,

1994,31 pp.

UNESCO, Mervyn Claxton, Culture and Development: A Study, ‘Paris, 1994, 62 pp.
(CLTDECPRO-94/01).

UNESCO, Report by the Secretariat on the implementation of the programme of the Decade
since the fourth regular session of the Committee. Statements by Member States on
activities undertaken. Role of National Committees and United Nations agencies, item 4
of the agenda of the Second Extraordinary Session of the Intergovernmental Committee
of the World Decade for Cultural Development, Paris, 1994, 29 pp.
(CLT-95/CONF.207/3).

U NESCO, Examination of the report by the Secretariat on progress achieved in the project
regarding the methodology for including cultural factors in development policies, and
debate on practical action enabling the application of a cultural approach to
development policies, Second Extraordinary Session of the Intergovernmental
Committee of the World Decade for Cultural Development, Paris, 1994, 12 pp.
(CLT-95/CONF.207/4).

UNESCO, New orientations for the implementation of the Plan of Action of the Decade until
1997 and discussion on post-Decade activities, item 6 of the agenda of the Second
Extraordinary Session of the Intergovernmental Committee of the World Decade for
Cultural Development, Paris, 1994, 8 pp. (CLT-95/CONF.207/5).

UNESCO, Examination of the mid-term summary evaluation report on the Plan of Action for
the Decade called for under paragraph 3.C of United Nations resolution A/46/157
@rty-sixth session), Second Extraordinary Session of the Intergovernmental Committee
of the World Decade for Cultural Development, Paris, 1995, 17 PP.
(CLT-95/CONF.207/INF.6).

UNESCO, Final Report, Intergovernmental Committee of the World Decade for Cultural
Development, Second Extraordinary Session, Paris, 3-5 April 1995 (CLT/MD/S).

UNESCO, ‘Resolutions’, Records of the General Conference, 28th Session, Paris, 1995,
Paris, Vol. 1, 1996, 150 pp.

UNESCO, Medium-Term Strategy 1996-2001, Paris, 1996,66 pp. (28 C/4).

UNESCO, Approved Programme and Budget for 1996-1997, Paris, January 1998, 266 pp.
(28 C/5 Approved).

Periodicals

CAPRILES, Oswaldo, ‘Por una cultura altemativa’, in ININCO, Caracas, No, 4-5, 1983,
pp. 48-64.

Cuban Committee for the World Decade for Cultural Development, Carta del Decenio,
Havana, Second Year, July 1991, 15 pp.

Venezuelan National Commission for Co-operation with UNESCO, ‘Juramentado ComitC de

Apoyo al Decenio Mundial para el Desarrollo Cultural de la UNESCO’, in Boletin,
No. 4, 1991, p. 9.
 -67-

LANDER, Edgardo, ‘La necesidad de mirar al mundo desde otro lugar’, in Cuadernos Nuevo
Sur,No. 1, 1992.

LEVINE, Barry B., ‘America Latina en una era de desencanto’, in Ciencia Politica, Bogota,
second quarter 1992, pp. 25-36.

UNESCO, Cultural Development, special editions 1 and 2 MONDIACULT, Newsletters

Nos. 28 and 30,1982.

UNESCO, ‘Modernity and Identity: A Symposium’, in International Social Science Journal,

London, No. 118, November 1988, pp. 443-457.

UNESCO, ‘Let’s get going’, in UNESCO Sources, Paris, No. 30, 1991, pp. 7-16.

UNESCO, Culture Plus Newsletter of the World Decade for Cultural Development, Paris,
No. 1, March 1989, 16 pp.; Vol. II, No. 1, January 1990, 12 pp; Vol II, No. 4, December
1990, 16 pp.; Vol. III, No. 2, June 1991, 12 pp.; Vol. III, No. 3-4, December 1991,
16 PP.

UNESCO, Culture PIUS Newsletter of the World Decade for Cultural Development, Paris,
Vol. III, No. 1, March 1991, 16 pp.; No. 9 1992, 19 pp.; No. 10, 1993, 19 pp.; No. 11,
1993,19 pp.

UNESCO, Culture Plus, Newsletter of the World Decade for Cultural Development, Paris,
No. 12-13, 1994,23 pp.; No. 14,1994,23 pp.

UNESCO, ‘Culture and Development: A Vital Connection’, in UNESCO Sources, Paris,

No. 58, May 1994, pp. 7-16.

UNESCO, ‘Culture and Development: The Winning Combination’, in UNESCO Sources,

No. 74, November 1995, pp. 7-16.

Newspapers

‘La pobreza tiene cara de mujer’, in El Universal, Caracas, 8 March 1995, pp. l-6.

ZERPA, Fabiola, ‘Bajo el signo de1 Islam’, in El National, Caracas, 23 July 1995, p. A-6.