In 2025, we will mark both ten years of the agreement of the UN’s 2030 Agenda, as well as five years until whatever succeeds it will need to be agreed. For the Culture2030Goal campaign, of which IFLA is a founding member, it will also need to be a year where the momentum towards recognition of the need for a dedicated culture goal grows. 

When the UN’s Member States failed to integrate a culture goal into the 2030 Agenda back in 2015, they missed out on a major opportunity. The lack of such a goal has not only meant an under-appreciation of a key policy goal in itself, but also an under-mobilisation of the resources of the cultural sector in achieving other goals, and a failure to incorporate fully cultural perspectives and factors that can be determinants of policy effectiveness.

In brief: the absence of such a Culture Goal is one of the main reasons for the severe difficulties in the achievement of the Global Goals.

In 2020, the Culture2030Goal campaign, building on an assessment of how far culture was nonetheless being integrated into those national and local implementation programmes of the 2030 Agenda that are truly people-centred, therefore set out a plan for the coming ten years, matching the UN’s own plans for a Decade of Action. 

This included ambitions around three axes: to secure a more central place for culture in the current development agenda, a standalone goal in the next one, and a broader global agenda for culture. 

So how are we doing?

On the first axis, “a more central place for culture in the current development agenda”, there are signs of progress. Our reviews of the presence of culture in reviews of SDG implementation consistently bring up strong examples of governments, at all levels, that have recognised what leaders in 2015 did not: that culture needs to be treated both as a goal in itself, and as an enabler of other goals. 

Key UN texts – the Declaration from the SDG Summit in 2023, and then the Pact for the Future, have also recognised the need to integrate culture into development policies, and indeed that incorporating culture helps tackle barriers to development. This message has been echoed in other cross-cutting texts, from the G20, G7, BRICS, EU and more. 

Nonetheless, including culture still does not come naturally to some. Too often, culture only appears in the second or third draft of such texts, requiring advocacy from relevant stakeholders. We need culture to be front-of-mind among development policy makers today. 

On the second axis, a standalone goal in the post-2030 Agenda, it has been powerful to see UNESCO take up the idea of an explicit culture goal in a future development agenda. This first appeared during the negotiation of the Declaration from the 2022 MONDIACULT conference held in Mexico City, and indeed is the core theme of the next one, due to take place in September 2025 in Barcelona. 

A number of countries and international declarations have echoed this message, although there remains opposition. This may be motivated by a variety of factors, from a desire not to prejudge subsequent negotiations, to more formal opposition to the idea that culture matters for development, or questions about whether a dedicated goal is the optimal way forwards.

We do not believe that any of these arguments are particularly strong. The Culture2030Goal campaign is currently prioritising the preparation of a new version of our draft culture goal, which will demonstrate not only the feasibility of such a goal, but also how it is also desirable as part of any truly comprehensive development framework. Through this, we also hope to see culture better recognised already today.

Finally, the relaunch of the MONDIACULT process in 2022 marked a very useful step towards the development of a global agenda for culture. Bringing together ministers and other leads to share experiences and perspectives is an important step in creating momentum for better recognition of, and support for, culture, both as a goal in itself, and as an enabler of other goals. 

As this meets again in Barcelona in September, as mentioned, a key challenge will be to ensure that the global agenda for culture mobilises actors outside of the ‘traditional’ arts, culture and heritage fields. Similarly, it is important that the role of culture is not only visible, but actively integrated into work around other policy areas, not least social development, climate action, oceans policy and more, all of which will be the subject of major meetings this year. 

The Culture2030Goal campaign – through its analysis of SDG implementation, its development of the new culture goal, and its engagement in international policy processes – will continue to work hard to advance our agenda.

Join the first meeting of the Culture2030Goal campaign Agora on 24 March at 2pm UTC (see what time this is for you) to find out more.