Leadership (Abuja)
Pamela Sombo
23 May 2008
The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has emphasised that cultural diversity is a good weapon in the fight against poverty.
UNESCO's director general, Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, made this known on the occasion of the world day for cultural diversity for dialogue and development organised by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation in collaboration with UNESCO in Abuja.
The DG re-emphasised the essence and importance of cultural diversities as an engine of sustainable development and as such, a decisive weapon in the fight against poverty.
"We find ourselves at the end of one cycle and the start of another which is more practical, more concrete. This new joined up activity, moving from laws to deeds puts us in a position to prove, on the basis of the universal principles enshrined in our standard setting instruments, that cultural diversity is indeed an engine of sustainable development and, as such, a decisive weapon in the fight against poverty", he stated.
According to him, of the seven international conventions promoted by UNESCO to strengthen cultural diversity throughout the world, the most recent now ratified and in force is entering in their turn an operational phase.
This, he said, is the case especially of the 2003 convention for safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage and the 2005 convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions which supplement the 1972 convention for the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage.
Matsuura noted that the reoccurrence of the world day for cultural diversity affords an opportunity to gauge capacities for promotion on the basis of what is now a coherent standard setting foundation, an integrated vision of culture in the areas of development, innovation, dialogue and social cohesion.
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