UNESCO

Chair on Heritage Futures

Preparing MONDIACULT 2025

2024-11-22

On 21 and 22 November 2024, Cornelius Holtorf was attending the Regional Consultation for Western Europe and North America in preparation of the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development – MONDIACULT 2025, to be held 29 September – 1 October in Barcelona, Spain. I was one of three UNESCO Chairs participating in the meeting.

The meeting was introduced by the Vice-minister of Culture of the Kingdom of Spain. Mr. Jordi Martí Grau who emphasized the rights of all citizens to culture and creative work, stressing the significance of education in that respect, and that “there cannot be sustainable development without culture”. Grau emphasized the rights of all citizens to culture.

The meeting was attended, among others, by the Assistant Director General for Culture (ADG Culture), UNESCO, Mr. Ernesto Ottone-Ramírez, and by representatives of Cultural Ministeries from many European countries, the U.S. and Canada. It was moderated by the representative of Andorra and featured simultaneous translation of all contributions between Spanish, English, and French.

In my own short address to the participants I emphasized the opportunities for culture, UNESCO and MONDIACULT arising from the 2024 UN Pact of the Futures. In conclusion, I suggested for MONDIACULT 2025 to

  1. integrate foresight, anticipation, and the benefits of ‘futures literacy’ in cultural policy around the world,
  2. promote the potential of culture and cultural heritage for globally addressing the needs of future generations in the context of change and transformation.

Note: an interesting background of global cultural policy development in relation to the work of UNESCO is given in Justin O’Connor’s 2024 essay on Global Cultural Policy at the Crossroads: Reflections on the Summit of the Future.

Mondiacult and Our Common Agenda

2021-12-13

Cornelius Holtorf was invited to address the regional online consultation for Europe and North America ahead of the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development (Mondiacult) to be held 28-30 September 2022 in Mexico.


Introduced by Nina Obuljen Koržinek, Minister of Culture and Media of Croatia, Cornelius had 3 minutes to address the 100+ high-level participants, including several Ministers of Culture and senior officials from national governments, supranational organizations and NGOs throughout Europe and North America.


As part of a session on Strengthening synergies between culture and education for human-centred development and sustainability, he took the opportunity to advocate for the importance of foresight and futures literacy in the culture and heritage sectors to be better prepared for the challenges of the future, as proposed in the UN Director-General’s recent report on “Our Common Agenda”.

He also pointed to the significance of culture and heritage for promoting an agenda of global solidarity and trust both within and between societies, likewise in line with the UN Director-General’s agenda but in his report unfortunately not linked to culture or heritage.