UNESCO World Forum on Culture and Cultural Industries

Andy Pratt spoke to the UNESCO World Forum on Culture and Cultural Industries in Florence held last week (Oct 2-4). The meeting, the third of its kind begun in 2009, was organised by UNESCO in collaboration with the Italian Government, and regions. About 500 attended from around the world: experts, ministers and UNESCO representatives. The meeting was held in the magnificent setting of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

Andy spoke to the meeting about culture and investment; he developed the proposal of a bank for culture that also functioned as a knowledge resource and knowledge exchange hub. This work links to that which he has done for UNESCO previously: on local capacity building, and for the EC on banking and the cultural industries.

The forum concluded with the ‘Florence Declaration’ on maximising the role of culture to achieve sustainable development and effective way of integrating culture in the post -2015 development agenda, which will be agreed at the UN later this year.