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UNESCO’s work in the Culture Sector has an impact on poverty reduction and growth in many ways that align strongly with SDG targets. Goal 8 on sustainable economic growth, in particular, targets the creation of decent jobs, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, youth employment, as well as growth through diversification and a focus on high-value added and labour-intensive sectors. Through its Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005), in particular, UNESCO works actively to ensure that enabling conditions for flourishing cultural and creative industries are in place. These industries fill most of the desirable criteria under Goal 8. Globally, cultural and creative industries (CCI) are now estimated to generate nearly 30 million jobs worldwide, and several CCI fields employ a disproportionately high number of young people thus contributing to youth empowerment through employment. Sectors such as film and performing arts are notoriously labour-intensive, while other sectors such as recorded music and fine-arts have historically been characterized by very high value-addition. Studies on the future of work suggest that jobs and skills in the creative sector are at very low risk of displacement due to increased digitization; these are thus strategic areas to support for future employability ii.

Beyond ensuring that the policy and framework conditions for cultural industries are in place, the 2005 Convention’s funding instrument, the International Fund for Cultural Diversity, also provides direct funding for projects in developing countries; several projects directly focus on cultural entrepreneurship. UNESCO is also working to promote youth employment in heritage reconstruction and recovery. As part of UNESCO’s ‘Revive the Spirit of Mosul’ initiative, the European Union is providing 20 million euros for a series of urban reconstruction projects in Mosul and Basra, which will provide jobs and skills development for approximately 1,500 young people, internally displaced persons and returnees. In 2018, UNESCO and the European Union launched a 10-million-euro cash-for-work programme that aims to provide employment opportunities to Yemen’s youth through the restoration of the country’s World Heritage cities and historic urban areas.

Goal 8 also has a specific target on the promotion of sustainable tourism that creates jobs, and promotes local culture and products. UNESCO’s work on tangible and intangible cultural heritage has very strong synergies with tourism development. Cultural tourism accounts for nearly 40 percent of world tourism revenues. 91Â鶹¹ú²ú¾«Æ·×ÔÅÄ long recognized that while tourism brings opportunities, when uncontrolled and unplanned it can also bring challenges that include cultural disruption, local environmental problems and insufficient returns to local communities. The World Heritage Centre for several years has provided guidance on sustainability issues at World Heritage sites, which are among the world’s top tourist attractions. In 2011, the  programme was launched and later a toolkit was developed for managers of sites and policymakers. In 2016,  was published, providing insight on the vulnerability of World Heritage sites to climate change and the potential implications for global tourism. That publication and others address the issue of disaster-preparedness, highlighted in the 2018 UN SDG report as increasingly important. UNESCO and the European Union recently launched the first web-platform dedicated to sustainable tourism in Europe. This ‘World Heritage Journeys’ platform features 34 World Heritage sites from 19 EU countries and encourages travellers to explore Europe’s less-visited sites and to stay longer at each destination. This aims to spread the benefits of tourism more evenly while reducing over-tourism at Europe’s most visited destinations. UNESCO also actively provides guidance to museums, another key tourist sector iii. In 2015 the  was adopted, offering museum professionals and policymakers advice on unlocking the full cultural, social, economic and educational potential of museums. Capacity-building for cultural policy, provided under UNESCO Culture Conventions, is also having positive outcomes for sustainable tourism by facilitating multisectoral dialogue to ensure the growth of a tourist sector that builds on local culture and products.

Traditional toys in market of Dhammayangyi Temple, Bagan, Myanmar © efesenko

Goal 10, addressing the fight against inequalities, stresses the need for inter alia, fair wage policies. In response to a rapidly evolving environment for creative content, UNESCO’s 2005 Convention adopted digital guidelines in 2017 to help countries ensure that artists and producers benefit fairly from the digitization that is disrupting several cultural industry value chains and that poses increasing risks of market concentration. Fighting poverty and inequality among countries under Agenda 2030 also involves facilitating the mobility of people (target 10.7), implementing the principle of special and differential treatment for developing countries (target 10.a) and enhanced development cooperation to mobilize resources for developing countries (target 1.a). The first two principles are enshrined in Article 16 of the 2005 Convention, which states a substantive obligation for developed countries to facilitate cultural exchanges with developing countries by granting preferential treatment to artists and other cultural professionals and practitioners, as well as cultural goods and services from developing countries. UNESCO collects data to monitor the impact of these preferential treatment clauses in international trade and, in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions at Laval University in Canada, is developing a training module for trade negotiators from developing countries. Significantly, the Ministers of Culture of the South American trading bloc, Mercosur, called for measures to overcome existing imbalances of cultural goods and services at their meeting in June 2019. Furthermore, parties to the African Union’s African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement are in the process of defining the role of cultural and creative industries, cultural tourism and culture-related small and medium enterprises within its trading block. As for resources, the International Fund for Cultural Diversity makes crucial resources available for the public sector and civil society actors in developing countries to strengthen the economic and social contributions of their cultural sectors.

The 2030 Agenda emphasizes the multidimensional nature of poverty. It is UNESCO’s conviction that cultural poverty, consisting of a lack of access to cultural services, constitutes a dimension of poverty. This type of poverty will increasingly become a challenge in the rapidly growing urban spaces worldwide, which will be home to an estimated 70 percent of the world’s population by 2050, and in particular among urban youth and other potentially disenfranchised groups. All of UNESCO’s work in the culture sector contributes to increasing access to and participation in cultural life, through the promotion of intangible and tangible cultural heritage, support to cultural industries, and support for participatory cultural policy tools to respond to needs of local citizens.

UNESCO is engaged on the issue of culture in the urban context. The cultural industries and the creative economy as a whole are closely linked to urban hubs, stimulated by the density of exchanges, knowledge generation and the diversity of economic and social activities. An increasing number of cities are choosing to invest in creativity, to support the regeneration of deprived urban areas, to foster the growth of economic industries or to contribute, more broadly, to the city’s visibility at an international level. 91Â鶹¹ú²ú¾«Æ·×ÔÅÄ provided recommendations for local governments in the comprehensive global report on culture for sustainable urban development, . Furthermore, the UNESCO , which includes 246 member cities from 84 countries in seven creative fields, stimulates cooperation with UNESCO and among cities within the network. Experiences of network cities in stimulating cultural entrepreneurship and employment have been collated through the  publication; these include developing creative centres and cultural incubators. In response to the increasing challenge of disasters, as well as continued challenges of armed conflict, UNESCO collaborated with the World Bank to publish in 2018 . This publication is a framework for integrating culture in city reconstruction and recovery to ensure greater effectiveness in restoring the physical and social fabric of cities recovering from disaster therefore contributing to reducing poverty and inequalities.