Background

Adopted in September 2015, the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development provides an ambitious universal agenda for all countries to work towards, aiming at reducing poverty and hunger, protecting the planet by adapting the consumption, production and management of natural resources, ensuring that economic, social and technological progresses contribute to prosperity for all, and at fostering peace, justice and inclusiveness. As the Agenda is firmly anchored in human rights, achieving the sustainable development goals should be done in a manner that both contributes to the exercise of human rights and refrains from having negative impact on their full realization. Cultural rights, as an inherent part of the human rights system, should be considered in this process to leverage the implementation of the SDGs, and processes to achieve any of the SDG should not have negative impact on the realization of cultural rights.

Cultural rights protect the rights for each person, individually and in community with others, as well as groups of people, to develop and express their humanity, their world view and the meanings they give to their existence and their development through, inter alia, values, beliefs, convictions, languages, knowledge and the arts, institutions and ways of life. They are also considered as protecting access to cultural heritage and resources that allow such identification and development processes to take place.

Objectives of the report

In order for the Agenda 2030 to better mainstream cultural rights in the coming years, there is a need to identify where projects and policies aiming at sustainable development may have had negative effects on cultural rights or seemed to conflict with their full realization. The Special Rapporteur would also like to reflect more broadly on the relationship between diversity and cultural rights in the approaches to development.

To help the Special Rapporteur identify relevant experiences and challenges, the following questionnaire is widely disseminated to States, United Nations agencies, national human rights institutions, academics, cultural workers and practitioners, as well as civil society organizations. It addresses the two aspects of the question the Special Rapporteur intends to consider in her report.

The Special Rapporteur looks forward to benefiting from the diverse views and experiences.

Key questions and types of input sought

I. The cultures of development

This first part aims at gathering information about the vision, values and aims of development, and about those who are involved in defining the strategies and evaluating progress in their achievement.

1. What is your understanding of what “development” should aspire to?
2. How is development defined in your country?
   • If it exists, please provide the definition of development used in your Government’s / organizations’ strategies or policies towards (sustainable) development.
3. Has your country developed and adopted a (sustainable) development strategy?
   • If so, please indicate what the main development model is, the aims that are communicated and monitored.
4. Who are the main stakeholders defining, driving and monitoring the (sustainable) development process?
   • Please provide information on the various levels or sectors of stakeholders involved.
5. Are there participatory processes influencing and informing the definition and evaluation of (sustainable) development policies? If so, how?
6. Have the development priorities or the assistance provided by international organisations impacted negatively on some aspects of your country’s (sustainable) development policies?

II. The cultural rights dimension of the sustainable development goals

This part of the questionnaire aims to gather experiences on how cultural resources and cultural rights have been considered in the strategies and programs aiming to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) generally as well as for specific goals.

7. In designing the strategy to achieve the SDGs, what consideration has been given to their cultural dimensions and to cultural rights? Which aspects have been considered?
8. How was the planning, implementation and monitoring of the strategy adapted to the cultural values, world views, practices and identities of the concerned persons? How was respect for diversity integrated in the process?
9. How were the persons concerned involved? Their diverse cultural resources, knowledge and capacities in various contexts capitalized? Has the strategy to achieve the SDGs been designed in a way that is culturally adequate and inclusive?
10. Have international development and financial agencies taken into account cultural rights in sustainable development initiatives?
11. Where cultural resources and creative capacities were leveraged in achieving the SDGs, what were in your experience the results, successes, weaknesses, or lessons learned?