The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions adopted in 2005 by the UNESCO General Assembly is an international standard setting instrument providing a framework for the governance of culture that is based on fundamental principles of freedom of expression, gender equality, openness and balance to other cultures and expressions of the world and on the complementary economic and cultural aspects of sustainable development as defined in Part 1 (“Objectives and guiding principles”) of the Convention. The most recent UNESCO Convention in the field of culture and ratified by 142 Parties to date, it encourages governments to introduce policies for culture within a global context and commitment to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions. ”
The submission of a periodic report every four years after ratification/accession (quadrennial periodic reports!) reporting on measures taken to implement the Convention is one of the obligations of all Parties to the Convention. Indonesia was the 120th in December 2012. To date, 76 reports out of 116 expected have been submitted. Parties, particularly from developing countries, have expressed a number of challenges such as lack of relevant data and information required for evidence-based and transparent policy-making; limited capacity to assess and monitor the impact of policies and measures for the diversity of cultural expressions; fragile networking between governments and civil society. Under the framework of UNESCO’s project ‘Enhancing fundamental freedoms through the promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions’ funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), a series of capacity-building activities on periodic reporting for the 2005 Convention is being organized in 12 priority countries. Indonesia is one of them. UNESCO selected 43 international experts and provided them with training. The aim of the capacity-building action is to strengthen institutional and professional capacities of governmental and civil society actors to monitor and report on policies and measures taken to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions as stipulated by the Convention.
The capacity-building action consists of 3 main activities:
1. “One-day National Multi-stakeholder Consultation Workshop on Periodic Reporting for the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions” held in Jakarta on 08 December 2015.
2. “Workshop for the Preparation of Quadrennial Periodic Report for the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions” to be held in Jakarta in March 2016
3. “One-day Public Presentation and Debates on the Periodic Report” scheduled to be held in mid-April 2016. UNESCO selected 43 international experts of the 200 applications received. They were given an extensive training last May in Casablanca. Two of them have been assigned to assist Indonesia: Ms. Anupama Sekhar (India), Director of the Culture Department at the Asia-Europe Foundation based in Singapore and Mr. Charles Vallerand (Canada), General Secretary of the International Federation of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity based in Montreal.
