Towards the SDG Summit which will take place in New York in next September, the #Culture2030Goal campaign, where Culture Action Europe is an active member, has launched a pledge to call the UN to include culture in the Zerodraft Declaration of the Summit.
It is concerning that culture is not mentioned at all in the Zero Draft of the Declaration of the SDG Summit, says the statement. Its absence increases the chances of repeating the mistakes of 2015, when culture was not adequately recognised, leading to a situation where, as the Secretary General has indicated, ‘culture and respect for cultural diversity, however, remain undervalued and underutilised in the push for SDG progress’.
The Zero Draft of the SDG Summit Declaration aims to set out an agenda for boosting work to implement the 2030 Agenda. However, in its drive to identify key accelerators of sustainable development, there is one glaring omission: culture.
#Culture2030goal campaign is formed by global cultural networks united to advocate for the role of culture in sustainable development. Its story began when cultural networks united in 2013 to launch a global campaign entitled #culture2015goal. This called for culture to be included in what would become “Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. With implementation of the Agenda underway, the campaign evolved into #culture2030goal.
