Culture is development, not decoration

In this article

1. How we got here: four decades of cultural policy
2. What the numbers show
3. Trade tells a second story
4. Where the sector is fragile
5. Creative economies in practice
6. Tools that already exist
7. Culture and sustainable development on the global agenda
8. What we take from this
9. Why this matters for regions in transition
10. Putting it to work: a practical agenda
11. Key terms, discussion questions and FAQ

Culture and sustainable development have spent most of the past fifty years in separate rooms. Culture ministries looked after museums, heritage and the arts, while development planners worked on growth, health and roads. Budgets followed the same split, and so did the statistics: a country could report in detail on its exports of cars or textiles while knowing very little about its musicians, designers or publishers.

That split is starting to look outdated. Over the past few years, UNESCO and UNCTAD have published figures that put culture on the same economic map as manufacturing and tourism, and the world’s culture ministers have twice met to argue that it belongs in the next global development agenda. This article walks through the evidence, where it is strong, where it is thin, and what it suggests for anyone working on culture in development.

How we got here: four decades of cultural policy

The argument that culture belongs in development policy is not new. It has been built up, conference by conference, since the early 1980s, and each step widened what governments mean when they say “culture.”

The first MONDIACULT met in Mexico City from 26 July to 6 August 1982, with 960 participants from 126 States (UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage). Its Mexico City Declaration defined culture broadly: the full set of spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that set a society or group apart. That includes ways of life, value systems, traditions and beliefs, not only the arts and letters. The definition still shapes cultural policy today.

Sixteen years later, the Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies for Development met in Stockholm from 30 March to 2 April 1998. Its Action Plan went a step further and described cultural policy as a major component of sustainable development. It asked governments to build cultural policy into development strategy, support creativity and participation, protect heritage, encourage cultural industries, and put more money and people into cultural development (Culturelink).

Then, on 20 October 2005, UNESCO adopted the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. It entered into force on 18 March 2007, and by the Netherlands treaty database’s count it now has 163 Parties, including the European Union (Treaty Database). The Convention gives governments the right to support their own cultural industries and commits richer countries to help creators in developing ones reach wider markets.

Read as a sequence, the milestones show a steady shift. Culture has moved from something governments protect to something they are expected to plan for, measure and invest in.

What the numbers show

UNESCO’s 2022 global report, Re|Shaping Policies for Creativity, estimates that culture and creativity account for 3.1% of global GDP and 6.2% of all jobs. Exports of cultural goods and services doubled between 2005 and 2019, reaching US$389.1 billion.

To put the employment figure in perspective: about one job in sixteen worldwide is in a sector that most national development plans barely mention. Many of those jobs are held by women and young people, which matters for the inclusion goals governments already say they are pursuing.

Trade tells a second story

UNCTAD, the UN’s trade and development body, measures a slightly broader category it calls the creative economy. Its Creative Economy Outlook 2024 reports that creative services exports reached US$1.4 trillion in 2022, and creative goods exports US$713 billion. Creative services grew 29% between 2017 and 2022 and now make up 19% of all services exports, up from 12% a decade earlier.

The most encouraging figure in the report concerns who is selling. Developing economies’ share of creative services exports rose from 10% in 2010 to 20% in 2022. Much of that comes from work that can travel digitally: software, design, audiovisual content and research.

Readers should be careful when setting UNCTAD’s numbers next to UNESCO’s. The two organizations define the sector differently, so their totals are not directly comparable. UNESCO’s narrower count of cultural services still finds that developed countries account for 95% of exports. Read together, the two sources suggest that the doors are opening for creators in developing countries, but the room is still dominated by a small group of wealthy exporters.

Where the sector is fragile

The same UNESCO report is frank about the sector’s weaknesses. More than 10 million cultural and creative jobs disappeared in 2020 as theaters, festivals and tours shut down. Public spending on culture had already been sliding for a decade before the pandemic arrived, and much creative work is freelance or project based, with little social protection.

Gender is another weak point. Women hold 48.1% of jobs in culture and entertainment, yet UNESCO describes full gender equality in the sector as a distant prospect. Representation in the workforce has not translated into equal pay, leadership or access to funding.

Then there is visibility. Only 13% of the progress reviews governments file on the 2030 Agenda mention culture’s contribution at all. We keep coming back to that number. When a sector isn’t counted, it rarely gets a budget line, and when it has no budget line, its workers are the first to fall through the gaps in a crisis.

Creative economies in practice

Global figures can feel abstract, so it helps to look at one industry in one country. Nigeria’s film industry, widely known as Nollywood, is the best documented example from a developing economy.

When Nigeria rebased its GDP in 2014, it counted the film industry as a sector for the first time. An article in the IMF’s Finance & Development put Nollywood’s value at N853.9 billion, about US$7.2 billion or 1.42% of GDP, and said the industry releases more than 2,000 films a year and employs more than a million people directly or indirectly (IMF, 2016). The article does not give a source for every figure, so they should be treated as indicative rather than exact.

UNESCO’s 2021 study of the African film industry gives a wider frame. It estimates that film and audiovisual work employs about 5 million people across the continent and contributes about US$5 billion to GDP, and that the sector could support more than 20 million jobs and US$20 billion a year if it were properly developed (UN News). The gap between the current and potential figures is the policy story: the talent is there, but finance, distribution and copyright protection lag behind.

Nollywood grew largely without state support, on cheap digital equipment and direct-to-video sales. That is a lesson in itself. Creative industries can start with very little capital. What they need from governments is a legal and financial environment that lets them grow beyond the informal stage.

Tools that already exist

Governments and cultural organizations do not have to start from scratch. Several international instruments already support culture as part of development.

UNESCO Creative Cities Network

UNESCO created the Creative Cities Network in 2004 to encourage cooperation between cities that use creativity as part of their development. In October 2025 it welcomed 58 new members, bringing the total to 408 cities in more than 100 countries, and added architecture to its fields, which now number eight: crafts and folk art, design, film, gastronomy, literature, media arts, music and architecture (UNESCO release via IFACCA). For a mid-sized city, membership offers a network of peers and a framework for planning.

International Fund for Cultural Diversity

The fund set up under the 2005 Convention became operational in 2010. A 2024 UNESCO document reports that it had provided more than US$11.5 million to 152 projects in 71 developing and least developed countries (UNESCO, 2024). The sums are modest by development standards, but the fund targets exactly the gap the trade data reveal: creators in poorer countries who lack access to markets.

Culture|2030 Indicators

Measurement was the missing piece for years. UNESCO launched its Culture|2030 Indicators in November 2019: 22 indicators grouped into four themes, namely environment and resilience, prosperity and livelihoods, knowledge and skills, and inclusion and participation (UNESCO). They let a city or country show, with its own data, how culture contributes to specific Sustainable Development Goals. That speaks directly to the problem raised earlier, the 13% of national reviews that mention culture at all.

Culture and sustainable development on the global agenda

UNESCO held MONDIACULT 2022 in Mexico from 28 to 30 September 2022, four decades after the first world conference on cultural policies met in Mexico City in 1982. The aim was to get culture treated as a global public good in whatever development agenda follows 2030.

Spain hosted the next round in Barcelona, from 29 September to 1 October 2025. A Spanish government note to the Council of the EU counts more than 2,500 participants from 163 States, 118 of them ministers, and records that the outcome document was adopted by consensus.

According to IFACCA, that document reaffirms the 2022 declaration, describes participation in cultural life as a human right, and asks for culture to become a goal in its own right after 2030. Its themes ran from cultural rights and education to the digital economy, climate change and heritage in emergencies.

It is worth being clear about what this does and does not mean. Euronews noted that none of it is binding: the text sets direction for the next few years and creates no legal obligations. Its value lies in giving ministries of culture a shared reference point when they argue for budgets at home. El Espectador reported that the next conference will be held in Riyadh in 2029, which gives the process a fixed checkpoint before the post-2030 agenda is settled.

What we take from this

The points below are our own reading of the evidence, not conclusions stated by the sources.

• Cultural jobs and trade need to show up in national statistics and SDG reviews. If they stay invisible there, they will stay invisible in budget negotiations too. Adopting UNESCO or UNCTAD measurement frameworks is a practical first step that costs relatively little.
• The people doing the work need more protection. Freelance and project-based employment is the sector’s weak spot, and 2020 showed how quickly it can collapse. Social insurance schemes designed for salaried workers often leave artists out.
• Digital trade is the most realistic route for creators outside wealthy markets. The rise in developing economies’ share of creative services exports shows it can work, but it depends on reliable internet, payment systems and copyright enforcement.
• Heritage that crosses borders is worth managing jointly. Regions with layered histories, including the South Caucasus and Central Asia, have a lot of it. We look at one Central Asian example in our piece on shared heritage and peacebuilding.

Why this matters for regions in transition

For countries still building their economic institutions, culture has a particular advantage: much of the raw material already exists. Crafts, music, cuisine, historic sites and languages do not need to be imported. What they need is investment in skills, marketing and the legal frameworks that let creators earn from their work.

The risk runs the other way too. Without deliberate policy, cultural assets can be exploited by outside buyers with little benefit to the communities that hold them. Linking culture to development planning is partly about growth and partly about making sure the people who carry a tradition share in what it earns.

Putting it to work: a practical agenda

For a ministry, a city council or a cultural foundation, the evidence above points to a sequence of steps. None of them requires a large budget to begin, and each builds on the last.

The first step is to map what already exists. Most countries and cities have no reliable count of their cultural workers, organizations or exports. The Culture|2030 Indicators give a ready-made structure, and starting with even a handful of them produces numbers that can be used in budget discussions and national SDG reports.

The second step is to connect. Networks such as the Creative Cities Network give smaller places access to partners, peer learning and international visibility that would be hard to build alone. The same is true for regional networks of museums, festivals and arts schools. Connection costs little and often brings opportunities that a single institution could not create.

The third step is to use the funding that is already there. The International Fund for Cultural Diversity, regional development banks and bilateral cultural programs all fund projects in developing countries. Many go undersubscribed by applicants from the places that need them most, often because local organizations lack experience in writing proposals. Training in that skill is one of the most practical forms of support a foundation can offer.

The fourth step is to protect the people doing the work. That means social insurance that covers freelancers, fair contracts, and copyright systems that actually pay creators. Without these, growth in the cultural economy tends to benefit intermediaries more than artists.

The last step is to link heritage and tourism with care. Visitors bring income, but unmanaged tourism can damage historic sites and push residents out of old city centers. The most durable heritage economies keep local communities involved in decisions and share the income with them.

Key terms

Cultural and creative industries: Sectors whose main output is cultural or creative content, such as publishing, music, film, design, crafts and performing arts. UNESCO uses this term in its global reports.

Creative economy: UNCTAD’s broader category, which also includes activities such as software, advertising and research. Its figures are larger than UNESCO’s and are not directly comparable.

Global public good: Something that benefits everyone and that no country can provide or protect alone. MONDIACULT 2022 argued that culture should be treated this way.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): The 17 goals adopted by the UN for the period to 2030. Culture appears in some targets but has no goal of its own.

2005 Convention: UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, the main treaty supporting cultural policy and creators in developing countries.

Questions for discussion

1. Which cultural activities in your city or country are currently invisible in official statistics?
2. If culture became a separate development goal after 2030, what would you want its first three targets to be?
3. How could digital trade help creators in your region without concentrating income in a few platforms?
4. Where is the line between using heritage for tourism income and harming the communities that hold it?

Frequently asked questions

How much does culture contribute to the global economy?

UNESCO’s 2022 global report puts it at 3.1% of global GDP and 6.2% of employment.

How large is global trade in creative services?

UNCTAD reports that creative services exports reached US$1.4 trillion in 2022, with creative goods exports adding US$713 billion.

What is MONDIACULT?

It is UNESCO’s World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development. It met in Mexico City in 1982, in Mexico in 2022 and in Barcelona in 2025, with the next edition planned for Riyadh in 2029.

What are the Culture|2030 Indicators?

They are a UNESCO framework launched in 2019, with 22 indicators across four themes, that helps countries and cities measure how culture contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Is culture one of the Sustainable Development Goals?

No, not as a separate goal. The MONDIACULT 2025 outcome document asks for that to change after 2030.

Are MONDIACULT declarations binding?

No. They are political commitments by culture ministers and guide national policy without creating legal obligations.

Why does this matter for the South Caucasus and Central Asia?

Crafts, heritage sites and creative industries provide jobs, and shared heritage gives neighboring countries practical reasons to cooperate.

Closing

The case for linking culture and sustainable development used to rest mostly on goodwill. Today it rests on employment data, trade figures and declarations signed by more than a hundred governments. What nobody can say yet is whether those governments will measure and fund culture the way they fund health or transport. The run-up to the post-2030 agenda is the moment to find out. For a look at who actually gets to take part in this work, read our article on women and young people in cultural diplomacy.

Sources

• UNESCO, Re|Shaping Policies for Creativity: Addressing Culture as a Global Public Good (2022). Summary via Analysis & Policy Observatory.
• UNCTAD, Creative Economy Outlook 2024.
• UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, 1982 to 2000: from Mondiacult to Our Creative Diversity; Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies (1982).
• UNESCO, Action Plan on Cultural Policies for Development (Stockholm, 1998); Culturelink, Report from Stockholm (1998).
• Government of the Netherlands Treaty Database, Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.
• Steve Omanufeme, Runaway Success, Finance & Development, IMF (June 2016).
• UN News, UNESCO report on the African film industry (5 October 2021).
• UNESCO, Creative Cities Network; UNESCO release via IFACCA, 58 new member cities (30 October 2025).
• UNESCO, Terms of Reference, 2024 IFCD Evaluation.
• UNESCO, Culture|2030 Indicators.
• UNESCO, MONDIACULT 2022: World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development.
• Government of Spain, note to the Council of the EU, Results of MONDIACULT meeting in Spain (12 November 2025).
• IFACCA, ACORNS 465: Our shared vision at MONDIACULT 2025 (15 October 2025).
• Euronews, Mondiacult ends with promises and pledges to spread peace through culture (2 October 2025).
• El Espectador, La UNESCO declara la cultura como objetivo de desarrollo sostenible (1 October 2025).

Editor’s note (remove before publishing)

Internal links use relative paths under /blog/. Confirm the Foundation’s domain and final slugs in the CMS.

This is an AI-assisted draft. Open every source link and check each figure before publishing.

UNESCO and UNCTAD use different sector definitions; the text says so. Keep that caveat if editing.

Nollywood figures come from a 2016 IMF article that does not source every number; the text flags this.