Oct 19 – debates on theme of « Culture, Diversity and Dialogue »

In order to get a wide range of perspectives from youth, the Youth Forum split the delegates into 6 thematic groups, each dealing with its own topic. My topic, “Culture for Diversity, Dialogue and Development” was a very intimate and interactive environment to discuss ideas and best practices from different countries around the world. I felt that the UNESCO moderator was especially interested in getting the delegates to develop concrete actions and benchmarks to take to the General Conference. Being the rapporteur for this session, here are the key recommendations we came up with.

1) Increase youth access to UNESCO via National Commissions specifically through:

•   Interactive web tools for sharing resources (guidelines, publications, etc) and best practices—as well as printed and ‘traditional’ modes of access for rural communities

•   Patronage/UNESCO Emblem for youth projects (benchmark: at least 2 to 5 per biennium per Member State)

•   Capacity building for increased implementation of the seven UNESCO Conventions in the field of Culture

•  Creation or reinforcement of “Youth Desks” at National Commissions (benchmark: at least one per Member State)

2) Increase resources and programmes for Sustainable Cultural Tourism, specifically through:

•   child labour laws, in particular at World Heritage sites

•    tools and studies for evaluating the impact of tourism (positive and negative)

3) Increase support to arts education and cultural and inter-cultural programming (especially in marginalized or indigenous communities), such as festivals, performing arts, special events, camps, museum education and community outreach, and in particular the World Conference on Arts Education.