Doha: The Ministry of Culture organized on Wednesday a two-day regional workshop under the title ‘culture and sustainability’ in cooperation with the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO), which discussed three axes, including maintaining cultural heritage, cultural practices, cultural sustainability, and others.
In his speech during the workshop, Director of the Department of Culture and Arts at the Ministry of Culture Abdulrahman Abdullah Al Dulaimi said that the roles of culture have increased in our contemporary life, as literature, arts, and other forms of cultural expression, despite their diversity and richness, are no longer a form of entertainment and intellectual luxury. Rather, they have become a carrier of national identity and universal human values and a safety valve for peoples in the face of societal, environmental, and digital changes. He added that the increasing interest in cultural development as a major goal of sustainable development for the coming years
is nothing but a response to the emerging challenges facing our countries in the midst of the accelerating pace of globalization and the worsening risks threatening Arab societies at all levels. These challenges are not only environmental and scientific, but also cultural in the first place. Therefore, we are more aware than before that spreading the concepts of sustainability, its culture, and awareness of its civilizational requirements is only a form of self-protection and proactive protection for the right of future generations to live in safety.
He indicated that this workshop may constitute an important opportunity to deepen the consideration of the envisaged Arab cultural policies; highlight its role in implementing economic, social, and environmental development commitments; and raise fundamental questions about the functions of culture in its relationship to sustainability and the relationship of sustainability to cultural diversity and to creating the future. He noted the Ministry of Culture’s invo
lvement with others in fraternal countries in adopting the options developed by the ALECSO on the importance of Arab cultural cooperation in developing joint and sustainable policies that would contribute to cultural development and inspired by Qatar National Vision 2030 that Qatar will be an advanced country more capable of achieving sustainable development and ensuring the continuation of a decent life for its people for generations to come.
In his remarks to Qatar News Agency , Director of the Culture Department at the ALECSO Hamid Saif Al Nofali highlighted that the significance of the workshop lies in its research on achieving the 2020 United Nations sustainable development goals at the level of the Arab world. He pointed out that there are efforts made in fact by every Arab country regarding this, and the participants will look at all of these efforts, in addition to the possibilities of achieving the international goals set by the United Nations.
He indicated that culture will be present in all the w
ork of international organizations, as there is diligent work to allocate an independent goal of the sustainable development goals to culture, after culture was spread casually in the previous 17 goals, considering that this workshop will give an important buildup to achieving the desired goals.
In turn, Director of the UNESCO Office in Doha Salah El Din Zaki told QNA that the significance of the topic discussed in the workshop regarding the role of culture in sustainability, which is consistent with the definition of culture in the recent conference organized by UNESCO in Mexico in 2022, in which all member states recognized the importance of culture for sustainability and sustainable development, as a public good for the whole world, and accordingly urged to endorse culture as one of the sustainable development goals beyond 2030.
He said that UNESCO announced during this workshop a new initiative to create a new project on statistics regarding the role of culture in sustainable development and its impact
on the economy, society, education, and climate change, through a new system for collecting statistics in all fields. He considered that protecting and promoting culture is the ultimate goal in itself, and at the same time directly contributes to several sustainable development goals, such as safe and sustainable cities, decent work, economic growth, reducing inequality, the environment, promoting gender equality, and sound and inclusive development of societies.
Source: Qatar News Agency