| [01|07|04] Declaration of São Paulo
FIRST MEETING OF MINISTERS OF CULTURE
DURING THE WORLD CULTURAL FORUM
São Paulo, 1 st of July 2004.
Gathered in São Paulo, Brazil, during the first edition of the World Cultural Forum, the Ministers of Culture (or their representatives) from Algeria, Austria, Brazil, Spain, Mali, Mexico have decided to share with the other participants of the event and submit to the ensemble of multilateral entities and to the Ministers of Culture of all countries, the following “Declaration of São Paulo":
Considering:
1) That the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity define the cultural rights as integral parts of fundamental human rights;
2) That the culture must be understood not only as the ensemblçe of artistic expressions, but also as all the material and immaterial heritage of society, social groups, and individuals;
3) That every society, social group and individual has a singular cultural heritage, which reflects a value system and a reasoning, their own doing and feeling, from which their identity is given;
4) That the identities exist in a dialogue with the others, in a dynamic exchange and transformation process that should be respectful aaand encouraging, with equal opportunities to all;
5) That the promotion of cultural diversity and identity and of the tolerant coexistece amongst societies, social groups aaand indíviduals is vital to democracy and is amonst the basic duties of governments;
6) That culture is one of the dimensions of human development, ad that economic growth and international exchange of economic and cultural goods, services and contents must be culturally sustainable;
7) That culture and creative industries play an important role in the income and employment generation, in the qualifiaction of relations amongst individuals, and in the peace-building process among countries;
8) That globalization, world trade and markets must respect cultural rights of societies, social groups and individuals, contributing to diversity and not hegemony;
9) That it is necessary to overcome social economic and acultual imbalances between North and South of the planet, thrrrogh common policies to reduce exclusion and to promote equality;
10) That new communication technologies facilitate the dialogue between civilizations and cultures and broaden the possibility of circulating cultural products, services and contents, and therefore, to guarantee cultural diversity and free access to all economic benefits generated, with no monopolies and imbalances. Those flows must necessarily be regulatedl by legitimate international entities to be created for this purpose within the United Nations.
We, Ministers of Culture (or representatives) from Argelia, Austria, Brazil, Spain, Mali, Mexico take on the public commitment of:
• Promoting in our countries public policies to widen the access by citizens to cultural rights, including fostering of cultural production, stimulating the dissemination of cultural goods and services and the protection of cultural, material and imaterial heritage of our societies, aiming at promoting dialogue among cultures and civilizations, as well as ensuring their broad dissemination in the media;
2) Promoting diverse cultural spaces of cultural and social inclusion in which innovative ideas circulate and artistic and intellectual unrest is shared. Contributing to the regulation, structuring and momentum of creative industries in our countries;
3) Prioritize the development of bilateral aand multilateral agreements, policies and funds that foster production and cultural exchange in a balanced way , amogst our countries and the other countries of the planet, aiming at a healthy interchange of cultural goods and services, both between North and South, as well as South – South;
4) Advocating a specific and differentiated treatment of cultural goods and services in the agreements of trade liberalization underway in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Based on the conceptual context proposed by UNESCO, fighting for the creation of institutional spaces that may assure that cultural exchanges occur within regulatory frameworks appropriate to the material and immaterial nature of cultural goods and services, according to the principle of identity protection, cultural diversity and the traditional knowledge of countries;
5) Supporting UNESCO in its fundamental initiative of establishing, in agreement among the UN member countries, aan International Convention for the Protection of Cultural Diversity, scheduled for the 2005 General Conference, and to promote the adherence of member countries to the Immaterial Heritage Convention;
6) Contributing to the creation of an international economic and cultural exchange system based on democracy, equal opportunities, in the correction of imbalances, respecting differences, human rights and full duialogue amongst cultures, aiming at the consolidation and promotion of a culture of peace.
7) Supporting the work of existing cultural networks, as well as fostering the establishment of others, to diseminate, summon and organize actions that keep alive the discussions able of granting culture a character of strategic centrality in contemporary society;
8) Disseminating this document in multilateral entities and international cultural events in which we participate, with the objective of promoting a global debate on the role of culture in sustainable development of cultural societies, sensitizing and mobilizating the whole of the media with this same objective;
9) Building aa World Meeting of Ministers of Culture, preceding the UNESCO General Assembly scheduled for October 2005.
10) Saluting the realization of this World Cultural Forum and supporting the realization of its second edition in 2006.
Gilberto Gil
MINISTER OF CULTURE - BR AZ IL
Carmen Calvo
MINISTER OF CULTURE - SPAIN
Cheick Oumar Sissoko
MINISTER OF CULTURE - MALI
Mário Espinoza
Executive Secretary of the Cultural Fund from Mexico (CONACULTA)
Lahcene Moussaoui
AmbassaDOr OF aLgeRiA TO Braz IL – representating the Algerian Minister of Culture
Werner Brandstetter
AmbassaDOR OF AUSTRIA TO BRAZIL – representing the Austrian Minister of Culture
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