Commonwealth Culture Toolkit
The Commonwealth Culture Toolkit is a new interactive resource on culture designed to help encourage the sharing of cultural work in and around Commonwealth countries.
The Toolkit will be launched in November 2007 at the Commonwealth People's Forum in Kampala, Uganda.
This Toolkit is intended to promote the exploration and adoption of inter-cultural ideas and practices, to shine a light on those working in culture and to encourage greater support for their efforts, and to enable mutual learning between different Commonwealth contexts. It contains three main sections, drawing on experience in every Commonwealth region: case studies, issues and perspectives and spotlights.
Why this Toolkit?
Issues of culture are moving fast up the political agenda. The creative industries are in many countries now recognised as playing an increasingly important economic role, and the question of how such industries can best be supported to make their fullest contribution to development demands urgent investigation. At the same time, recent international initiatives, most notably the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, have drawn attention to the special status of culture and the need for governments, working with civil society, to develop and implement sound cultural policy which promotes the cultural sector and encourages inter-cultural actions.
The Toolkit has been developed with the collaboration of a wide range of partners across the Commonwealth in response to civil society advice, which identified an urgent need to address the lack of readily available information about cultural concerns and practice in Commonwealth countries. The Toolkit is also addressing the Commonwealth priority of building cultural connections so that mutual understanding and appreciation can be strengthened.
Case Studies
The case studies section offers examples and learning from a wide range of projects that are happening in the Commonwealth today. The studies are intended to encourage the adoption of successful practice elsewhere and help raise the profile of Commonwealth achievements and accomplishments.
Issues and Perspectives
The issues and perspectives examine more closely some of the topics raised in the case studies, particularly culture's connection to development, taking into account existing conditions and emerging trends.
Spotlights
The spotlights section takes five Commonwealth countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific and provides information on the cultural environment in those countries from the outlook of a cultural practitioner. These are intended to complement the information contained in the case studies and issues and perspectives.
Examples of case studies based on the Foundation's activities can be downloaded using the links below.
| Related Documents | |
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 | Case study - Comics for Development 61 KB) |
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| Case Study - Carnival Connections 46 KB) |
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| Case Study- Artscape Collaborations 35 KB) |
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