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The COVID-19 pandemic is having a destructive impact on the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable groups in societies, and stalling and, in some cases, reversing progress. While the crisis has threatened progress towards achieving the SDGs, it is an opportunity to heed the lessons learned to ensure inclusive, sustainable and transformative COVID-19 recovery. Culture is crucial to these strategies.  

 

In June 2020, the Secretary-General launched the “UN Comprehensive Response to COVID-19” for United Nations-wide cooperation to "save lives, protect societies, recover better" during and after the pandemic. Within this policy there are three main response components: 

• Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan to address immediate health needs
• Global Humanitarian Response Plan
• UN framework for the immediate socio-economic response

Building on its mandate, UNESCO contributes to UN COVID-19 response efforts on the immediate socio-economic response. Culture is firmly anchored across all of the five pillars of the framework:

1. Health first: protecting health services and systems during the crisis
2. Protecting people: social protection and basic services
3. Economic response and recovery: protecting jobs and small and medium sized enterprises, and the informal sector workers
4. Macroeconomic response and multilateral collaboration
5. Social cohesion and community resilience

Most countries are engaged in the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) and the preparation of Country Common Analysis (CCA). CCAs now include multidimensional risk analysis that give prominence to the obstacles that ethnic and linguistic minorities face in some countries in, for example, learning in mother tongue languages, or accessing state employment opportunities. Other entry points for culture include social cohesion, sustainable urbanization, post-COVID tourism and digitalization. These efforts pave the way for greater national ownership and interagency collaboration at the country level, as well as a more nuanced and contextual framework to better respond to priorities. 

 

91�鶹������Ʒ���� remained committed to advocating for the inclusion of culture in COVID-19 recovery plans. This means putting people at the centre of responses for more equitable and resilient outcomes. UNESCO is actively engaged in the work of UN Country Teams (UCT) and UN interagency programmes and mechanisms. In the Arab States region, for instance, UNESCO contributes to UCTs related to culture and employment for youth through the “Revive the Spirit of Mosul” and “Cash-For-Work” initiatives, and works to raise the profile of the Organization’s work in culture and sustainable development. Notably in Yemen, culture’s contribution focuses on economic resilience, decent employment and protecting people, in line with the humanitarian focus of all UN activities at country level.

Solid policymaking must be based on robust, evidence-based data. This is why thorough analyses of the impact of the pandemic on culture is needed in order to both establish a starting point for moving forward into recovery and ensure culture’s inclusion in recovery strategies. In the Pacific sub-region, UNESCO contributed to a joint. socio-economic impact assessment that provided key data on the integration of culture in the recovery process of 15 SIDS. The assessment also captured more fine-grained data related to the importance of intergenerational transmission of traditional knowledge, agricultural practices, the links between living heritage and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the impact of the cultural and creative industries on social cohesion and community resilience throughout the crisis. UNESCO also provided inputs on the impact of COVID-19 on culture in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia in relation to Pillar 3 (economic response) and Pillar 5 (social cohesion) of the UN COVID-19 response, based on ongoing projects and a UNESCO socio-economic impact assessment carried out in these countries.

Greater coordination between UN entities was an overarching priority of UN cooperation prior to the pandemic. Given the multi-faceted impacts of the pandemic, COVID-19 has only accentuated the need for diverse expertise and integrated responses. Over the past year, UNESCO collaborated with a number of UN agencies on targeted projects at country level. For example, in Cambodia, UNESCO joined other UN agencies to develop the socio-economic plan for COVID-19 response, in which culture features prominently through tourism, the cultural and creative industries and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) for handicrafts. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and UNESCO for the implementation of UNESCO Culture Conventions and the development of cultural policies in ECOWAS Member States, which also includes joint responses against COVID-19. In Brazil, 91�鶹������Ʒ���� worked on an UN interagency project to combat the spread of COVID-19 among indigenous peoples in the Amazon region. Through radio, social networks and other tools, it provides health messages in indigenous languages that take into consideration their values and culture. Meanwhile, a joint UN project on COVID-19 response in the informal sector with a specific focus on the creative industries was approved by the Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF) to be implemented in Fiji, Vanuatu, Palau and Tonga.