Important follow up meeting in Ottawa, Canada

Brief Report on:

At Home in the World:
An International Forum on Culture and Cooperation

June 29, 1998, Ottawa, Canada

This meeting of 170 delegates from over 30 countries included representatives of cultural NGOs, foreign embassies in Ottawa and directors of international relations from international cultural ministries. Delegates were unanimously positive about the meeting and expressed wishes that such meetings continue in the future.

The delegates saw the UNESCO Stockholm meeting in April, which brought together member states and NGOs, as the first step and the current meeting as the second. They look forward to a continuation of these forums.

This meeting was framed by two equally vital concepts - creation and access. Creators and artists must have opportunities to develop, create, produce and disseminate their work. Equally, the public deserves the broadest possible opportunity to participate in, be enriched by, and enjoy the art and culture of their time and place, their cultural heritage, and the cultures of other nations.

The major preoccupation of the meeting was enhancing and nurturing cultural diversity and cultural pluralism, both within nations and around the globe.

The participants identified six elements for a joint action plan:

• The focus of productive international discussions on these issues should be on the twin axes of creation and access by citizens to their culture;
• Ministers and non-government organizations should continue to meet regularly to develop productive dialogue about cultural issues on the international level;
• Minister Copps and her colleagues should actively and adequately support the creation of a Working Group of international non-government organizations to develop durable solutions for the treatment of culture in international trade before the start of the Millennium Round of negotiations set for the World Trade Organization in the year 2000, and to promote cultural diversity and pluralism;
• Future discussions on these issues should involve ministries related to international development, foreign affairs, labour, finance, immigration and revenue to promote the development of government-wide policies to encourage and foster cultural diversity and pluralism;
• The CCA should prepare a series of case studies on our national experience in dealing with international trade and culture to share with interested non-government organizations in the world community;
• The CBC will pilot an initiative with other international public broadcasters which will promote an awareness of artistic and cultural diversity and issues related to it through the use of the World Wide Web.

Abowe to the right Keith Kelly, National Director of CCA.

Joycelyn Harvey organizer of the meeting.

Other issues that were discussed include the importance of developing quality arts education opportunities, professional development for self-employed artists and cultural workers, and the need for adequate and direct funding for the development of a strong domestic talent base of artists and producers. A variety of ideas were shared about a charter of cultural citizenship or rights, and the need to develop a vocabulary to sustain continued international collaboration and discussion on these questions.

The Forum was widely commended by participants as a productive exercise which provided a sound basis for further follow-up efforts to the Stockholm meeting. Differing views were expressed with a candour that greatly contributed to the broad lines of consensus which eventually emerged at the end of the meeting.

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