Part I. Meeting of Experts
1.1 The experts’
meeting was held within the framework of the United Nations World Decade
For Cultural Development (1988-1997).
1.2 Participants from
Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Iran, Mongolia, Nepal, Sri
Lanka, Thailand and Turkey attended the meeting, as well as a
representative from with World Decade Secretariat (Unesco - Paris), and
the Resident Representative for India of the U.N.D.P.
1.3 The experts presented
papers which ranged from theoretical issues on cultural identity and
development to regional case studies in different field situations.
Part II. Observation
The Meeting,
2.1 Welcoming the
initiative of the United Nations in launching the "World Decade for
Cultural Development" and setting up of "World Commission on
Culture and Development", both under the aegis of Unesco,
(a) to promote the
cultural dimensions of development with a view to identifying and
analysing the ways in which cultural development influences individual
and collective well-being; and
(b) to study the
implications of the present progressive loss of indigenous knowledge,
tradition, language and even entire cultures.
2.2 Observing that
this initiative had come at an appropriate moment, especially in view of
the fact that
(a) development entails
transformation of the material base, social structures, value systems
and symbolic representation of any community or society, and brings
out the creative potential at an individual or collective level;
(b) as such, it amounts
to the re-creation of the society that draws on tradition and
re-orders it even as it creates while assimilating and adapting any
new technology on its own terms;
(c) a society is alive
and vibrant only if it has the capacity to be rooted in its own matrix
and yet responsive to other cultures; and
(d) development, in the
fullest sense, is the development of the human potential in all its
economic, material, socio-cultural, and spiritual aspects.
Part III. Recommendation No. 1
3.1 Calls-upon
(a) Research Institutions
to engage in multi-disciplinary studies of development strategies and
programmes in consultation with the representatives of the concerned
communities so that the significance of culture as a necessary aspect of
development is borne out, especially when there is an external
intervention of finance or technology;
(b) National Governments to
take cognizance of and reflect the cultural dimension of development in
their perspective planning at national, regional and village levels; and
(c) Specialized Agencies of
the United Nations System to take the initiative in incorporating cultural
parameters in development and to insist on involvement and participation
of target groups and communities in the planning process.
Part IV. Recommendation No. 2
4.1 Recommends
Unesco give support to the
organisation of further deliberations on the subject, especially by
(a) experts on culture
and ecology and those related to the developmental sectors such as
science, technology, rural development, economics, etc.;
(b) representatives of
community based and grass roots non-Governmental Organisations working
in the field of development programmes such as those of environment,
rural development, water resources and those from the fields of
education and culture; and
(c) UNESCO, in collaboration with other
United Nations Specialized Agencies support a series of pilot studies on
cultural identity and regional development.
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