Culture is an important element in development

Director of the UN MDG Achievement Fund

Published on 4 June 2011

Author(s): Europost/Maria Koleva

Type:  Interview

The Millenium Film Festival in Brussels has a unique strength to inform and inspire people in Europe about the MDGs presenting them not as cold statistics but as real experiences

Close-up: Sophie de Caen has been the Direct­or of the MDG Achieve­ment Fund for the past three years and has more than 20 years of inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment expe­ri­ence. Pri­or to the MDG-F, she was head­ing the UN Sys­tem as the UN Res­i­dent Coor­di­na­tor in Cam­er­oon for three years. Addi­tion­al­ly, Sophie de Caen has worked for the Unit­ed Nations Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme in five oth­er devel­op­ing coun­tries in Afri­ca, Asia and the Arab States. She has also been Chief of Eval­u­a­tion for the UN Cap­i­tal Devel­op­ment Fund.

Ms De Caen, what pro­grammes are financed by the MDG Achieve­ment Fund and which are the focus coun­tries?

The MDG Achieve­ment Fund is an inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion mech­a­nism that aims to accel­er­ate progress on the Mil­len­ni­um Devel­op­ment Goals (MDGs) world­wide. It is fund­ed by the Gov­ern­ment of Spain and man­aged by the Unit­ed Nations Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme. The Fund phi­los­o­phy is to cre­ate syn­er­gies from dif­fer­ent actors to ensure more impact of devel­op­ment pro­jects on the life of poor peo­ple.

We are proud to have fund­ed more than one hun­dred joint pro­grammes in 50 coun­tries across the world, all focused on the MDGs. An inter­est­ing exam­ple was that in Ecua­dor where we helped nation­al part­ners in for­mu­lat­ing a Plan against Racism that drove to the elab­o­ra­tion of a Pres­i­den­tial Decree and to the design of a new law to bet­ter coor­di­nate the nation­al and native jus­tice sys­tems.

Do you find any direct role of cul­ture in fos­ter­ing sus­tain­a­ble devel­op­ment glo­bal­ly? A big part of the world is still suf­fer­ing from pov­er­ty, fam­ine, dis­eas­es…

There is no doubt that cul­ture is an impor­tant ele­ment in devel­op­ment. A recent report fund­ed by the MDG-F on MDGs and Ine­qual­i­ties, illus­trates, for exam­ple, the indis­sol­u­ble link between ine­qual­i­ties and cul­tur­al and eth­nic dis­crim­i­na­tion. Groups can be exclud­ed from get­ting the basic social serv­i­ces such as edu­ca­tion and health sim­ply because of their eth­nic back­ground. But cul­ture and devel­op­ment doesn't mean only fight against social exclu­sion.

Cul­tur­al activ­i­ties can also be relat­ed to busi­ness and can gen­er­ate rev­e­nues and eco­nom­ic growth. As an exam­ple, the project we ran in sup­port of the Miao eth­nic com­mu­ni­ty in the Guiz­hou prov­ince of Chi­na proved how com­mu­ni­ties that received train­ing to improve their cul­tur­al busi­ness­es could enor­mous­ly increase their abil­i­ty to cre­ate new jobs and pros­per­i­ty.

We believe so strong­ly in the link between cul­ture and devel­op­ment that we have decid­ed to sup­port 18 joint pro­grammes pri­ma­ri­ly focused on the the­mat­ic area of cul­ture and devel­op­ment, and we have ensured each of our pro­grammes includes activ­i­ties relat­ed to those issues.

We are, there­fore, pleased to see that this year's edi­tion of the Mil­le­ni­um Inter­na­tion­al Doc­u­men­ta­ry Film Fes­ti­val, which we proud­ly sup­port, will screen sev­er­al mov­ies that touch upon this del­i­cate link.

In a time of aus­ter­i­ty cul­ture and the cre­a­tive indus­tries are among the first vic­tims when it comes to cut­ting budg­ets. Is this indeed the right approach and what con­se­quen­ces can it have in the future?

You are right, indeed. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, eco­nom­ic cri­ses affect­ed most­ly cul­tur­al activ­i­ties. We believe that it is a mis­take caused by both a lack of vision and a lack of anal­y­sis. As I have already men­tioned, it is impor­tant to state and show with facts how cul­tur­al indus­tries can not only have a pos­i­tive impact on social inclu­sion but also can be prof­it­a­ble and gen­er­ate sus­tain­a­ble eco­nom­ic growth.

How did the idea the MDG Fund to sup­port the Mil­le­ni­um Film Fes­ti­val that takes place June 8-14 in Brus­sels spring up?

The MDG-F phi­los­o­phy is work­ing togeth­er with oth­er UN agen­cies and its local part­ners to achieve the MDGs. MDGs also need a great pop­u­lar aware­ness and sup­port. The idea of the fes­ti­val is address­ing this need, and aims at enlarg­ing the MDGs sup­port con­stit­u­en­cy espe­cial­ly in devel­oped coun­tries.

The idea of the Fes­ti­val was pre­sent­ed to us by the UN/UNDP Office in Brus­sels. We found that it fit­ted in very nice­ly with the pri­or­i­ties of the MDG Achieve­ment Fund. The fes­ti­val has a unique strength to inform and inspire peo­ple in Europe about the MDGs pre­sent­ing them not as cold sta­tis­tics but as real expe­ri­en­ces.

To under­stand the MDGs, peo­ple need to feel what they mean, they have to put them­selves in the shoes of the peo­ple strug­gling for sur­viv­al and dig­ni­ty or to find cre­a­tive solu­tions to improve their lives. What makes this Fes­ti­val so spe­cial is the fact that it is a pow­er­ful tool to advo­cate for the MDGs in the often under­de­vel­oped coun­tries where the films screened dur­ing the week-long Fes­ti­val have been shot.

How can the Fes­ti­val help for the bet­ter under­stand­ing of the MDGs and what is the most impress­ive thing in this year's pro­gramme?

First and fore­most, the Fes­ti­val encour­ag­es film mak­ers from devel­op­ing coun­tries to sub­mit films on the MDGs. The MDG-F would like to see these films take on a great­er role of advo­cat­ing for the MDGs in each coun­try of ori­gin. Addi­tion­al­ly, we are pleased that the Fes­ti­val gar­ners such media atten­tion in Europe. Giv­en the cur­rent eco­nom­ic inter­nal pri­or­i­ties, some Euro­pe­an gov­ern­ments are temp­ted to decrease atten­tion to the achieve­ments of the MDGs.

For that rea­son it is cru­cial to get peo­ple involved and send the mes­sage that MDGs are still achiev­a­ble but only if they are giv­en con­tin­ued pri­or­i­ty atten­tion and polit­i­cal com­mit­ment and if every­one feels involved. And that is exact­ly the mes­sage that the Fes­ti­val sends to its audi­ence. The whole pro­gramme of the Fes­ti­val is very impress­ive. There are a lot of films show­ing how per­son­al engage­ment could real­ly change things and con­trib­ute to build a fairer and more sus­tain­a­ble world. We par­tic­u­lar­ly appre­ci­ate that the Fes­ti­val will also be screen­ing the film Fate, financed by the MDG-F, about the 2010 elec­tions in Bos­nia and Herze­gov­i­na.

Europe is now to adopt its first ever Roma strat­e­gy. What's your opin­ion, can the social and eco­nom­ic inclu­sion of this eth­nic group be made eas­ier and more flu­ent by using the cul­tur­al tools?

Of course, yes. As I already said, cul­ture and devel­op­ment pro­grammes are cru­cial to improve eco­nom­i­cal inclu­sion and social jus­tice. As an exam­ple, in Ser­bia, a coun­try with a 45% unem­ploy­ment rate among youth, the MDG-F financed a youth employ­ment pro­gramme that pro­vid­ed train­ing most par­tic­u­lar­ly to Roma, wom­en and dis­a­bled. The results have been aston­ish­ing: over 3,000 young peo­ple were trained result­ing, so far, in over 400 get­ting employ­ment and 140 start­ing their own busi­ness­es. Adver­tise­ment for the employ­ment cen­ters and train­ing mate­ri­als took account of the tar­get group includ­ing Roma and this has been a major part of their suc­cess.

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