General
Secretariat of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States
Press release
Dakar, 20 June 2003
ACP Ministers of
Culture adopt measures to reinforce their cultural industries, set up a
cultural Foundation, and institute an ACP Cultural Festival.
Ministers of Culture of
African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of states meeting in Dakar, Senegal
on 20 June 2003 under the Chairmanship of Mr. Abdou Fall [Senegal] have
adopted a Declaration and a Plan of action aimed at implementing a
development strategy based on culture and cultural industries as desired
by the Summit of ACP Heads of state and government. They also launched
the process for the establishment of the ACP Cultural Foundation and
chose Haiti as the venue for the 1st ACP Cultural Festival
slated for summer of 2004.
Cultural Policy.
Considering culture as the safeguard of their sustainable development
and maintenance of peace and security, they decided to make industries
and creativity an essential element of their economic development and
international cooperation policy, and their objectives in multilateral
trade negotiations. In the framework of the relations between the ACP
Group and the EU, they requested the latter to facilitate the movement
of ACP artistes and their works on EU markets while recommending that
their states include culture and cultural industries in their National
and Regional Indicative Programmes for EDF funding.
They further recommended
that cultural industries be assessed at national and regional level with
a view to determining their contribution to the countries’ economies and
potential; participating in the elaboration of an international
instrument on cultural diversity aimed at guaranteeing cultural
pluralism and regulating trade in cultural goods and services; and
defining common cultural strategies in order to take full account the
opportunities offered by globalization.
Cultural heritage
The ACP states were also
called upon to: assess their material as well as immaterial cultural
heritage, and to defend the UNESCO Convention for the conservation of
immaterial cultural heritage. In that context, the Ministers expressed
satisfaction at the adoption, by the governments of the Pacific, of a
Regional Framework for the protection of skills and expression of
traditional culture. They also launched a vibrant appeal for the
restoration of illegally-acquired ACP cultural property, and the
reinforcement of the struggle against the illicit trade in cultural
goods.
Status of the
Artist. The ACP Ministers encouraged the artists in their
respective countries who have not yet done so, to guarantee a legal
status for their artistes and fight against their precarious situation,
generally in the developing countries.
As far as the development
of cultural industries is concerned, the Ministers meeting in
Dakar undertook to get their countries to adopt a whole set of measures
bearing on public and private financing for cultural operators,
taxation, legislation, infrastructures and partnership between the
public sector, the private sector and international donors and other
important international organizations.
The Dakar Ministerial
conference also undertook to promote the ACP cultural operators’ access
to the information and communication technologies
and to defend, at international level, the concept of numerical
solidarity, especially during the forthcoming World Summit on
Information Society (Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005).
Festival and
Foundation. The Ministers adopted measures for the
implementation of the decision of the 3rd Summit of ACP Heads
of State and Government on the establishment of an ACP Cultural
Foundation and organization of an ACP Cultural Festival. They also
unanimously approved the choice of Haiti as the country to host the
first edition of the event in 2004, the year in which Haiti celebrates
the bi-centenary anniversary of its independence. As far as the
Foundation is concerned, they recommended that a study be conducted very
shortly, especially regarding the financing of this future institution.
I end my address by renewing my gratitude to the host country and
to our partners, and by wishing you all an excellent meeting which,
I am convinced, will be followed by other equally enriching ones.
I thank you for your attention.
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