Resolutions and Reference Documents
The United Nations General Assembly's resolutions and respective reports on Culture and Sustainable Development
Although culture has no stand-alone Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) within the 2030 Agenda, its contribution across the public policy spectrum makes it a powerful enabler in shaping sustainable development pathways.
Since 2010, the Member States of the United Nations have adopted 8 resolutions on culture and sustainable development. UNESCO, as the only United Nations agency with a global mandate in the field of culture, has been tasked with drafting reports on the implementation of these resolutions.
Built on a broad multistakeholder consultation involving UNESCO Member States, intergovernmental organizations, United Nations system sister agencies, civil society organizations and academia, these reports demonstrate with concrete examples that culture pervades all 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda and can help fill in implementation gaps.
On 6 October 2023 the latest report (2023) on the implementation of resolution on Culture and Sustainable Development (2021) was examined by the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York. The report covering the two year-period since June 2021 outlines prominent trends in international, regional and national cultural policies, highlighting with concrete examples areas of progress in areas such as the protection and exercise of cultural rights, the nexus of culture and education, the creative economy, the digitalization of the cultural sector, peacebuilding and climate action.
On this basis, the report calls for positioning culture as a global public good and as a development goal in its own right within the post 2030 development prospects, in the run-up to the Summit of the Future in 2024, while also advocating for renewed engagement towards sustainable financing of culture as a critical lever for inclusive and sustainable development.
On 21 December 2023 the UN General Assembly adopted the latest resolution on Culture and Sustainable Development A/RES/78/161, the report of which will be presented to the 80th session of the General Assembly in 2025.
