The international organizations within the global governance of
cultural industries
Dr. Antonios Vlassis, FNRS-Research Fellow
Centre for International Relations Studies, University of Liège.

Cultural goods and services, between symbolic and material production.

Their treatment has been the subject of growing interest at the international level.

Global governance of cultural industries based on two major issues: on the one hand, the cultural
exception affecting cultural goods and services in international economic exchanges; on the
other hand, the link between culture and development.

Convention on the protection and the promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions
(CDCE)- adopted by UNESCO in 2005.
Membership of 138 States and of the European Union (EU)
A main international public instrument within the global governance of cultural industries.



By global governance of cultural industries, I mean a system for organizing the relations of
power and of regulation at the world level; it is composed of rules, norms and institutions,
affecting several aspects of cultural goods and services (creation, production, distribution,
exhibition, status of artist, etc.) and allowing the involved actors to coordinate their practices in a
context of disaggregated sovereignty, of polyarchic authority and of absence of global
government.

The literature on the global governance of cultural industries remains mainly
state-centric.

Original view on the global governance of cultural industries, and in particular on
the international norms application, focusing on the cooperation among the
international organisations (IOs).

Global policy-making, IOs and IR theory: Neorealism, Neoliberal
institutionalism, Social Constructivism, Principal-agent theory.

Understand the ways of the IOs cooperation, how the administrations of the
international and regional organizations interact each other within the context
of the global governance of cultural industries.

Analyze the policy process through which the IOs cooperation is formulated
within the global governance of cultural industries and understand the different
types of the IOs cooperation and the various dysfunctions of the cooperation.
1. Technical cooperation and good practices recommendations
a.
Pilot multiagency project (2008-2011) ‘Strengthening the creative industries in five ACP
countries through employment and trade expansion’ implemented by three international
organizations, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) , the International Labor
Organization (ILO) and UNESCO with financing aid from the European Commission and with the
institutional support from the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) Groups.
a.
UNESCO-European Commission: expert facility project (2010-2014) funded by the EU in order to
implement the CDCE through the strengthening of the system of governance for cultural industries
in developing countries. Creation of a pool of 30 experts in public policies for cultural industries. 13
technical assistance missions were put in place in order to transfer knowledge and know-how
towards countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean. Budget: 1.2 million euros
b.
UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)-EU (2012-2015): The EU funded project
‘Development of Clusters in Cultural and Creative Industries in the Southern Mediterranean’
implemented by UNIDO. A team of UNIDO interviewed over 500 persons throughout the seven
participating countries and identified over 140 clusters and 70 other economic realities in cultural
and creative industries. Budget from the EU : 5 million euros.
c.
UNIDO-UNESCO (2005-2007): preparation of a policy-document exanimating the creative
industries in the context of Micro & Small Enterprise development programs and identifying the
various avenues for the promotion of these industries in Iran, Pakistan and Thailand.
2. Implementation
In relation to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Spain has supported 18 joint programs linked to the theme of
‘Culture and Development’ with a financial allocation of 95.6 million USD.
With the strong involvement of the UN agencies, the 18 programs were put in place towards five countries in Africa, two
countries in Asia, three Arab States, three countries in Europe, as well as five countries in Latin America.
Two UN agencies played a leading role and they received more than 60% of the total financial allocation: UN Development
Program (UNDP) and UNESCO.
A substantial number of UN agencies had a key role in the implementation of these joint programs, according to their mandate
and their special expertise: Food and agriculture organization (FAO), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UNICEF,
UNIDO, UN Women, United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), ILO, United Nations Environment Program, UN
Habitat, as well as Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (WHO).
3. Building conceptual framework (the fixing of meaning)
In 2004, the UNCTAD set up the UN multi-agency informal group on Creative Industries in an effort to build upon
complementarities and work in synergy with other relevant UN agencies. The group brought together: UNCTAD, UNESCO,
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), ILO, and International Trade Center (joint agency of the World Trade
Organization and of the UNCTAD) and in 2005 UNDP also joined.
One concrete example of the work of the UN informal group was the Creative Economy Report, the first report to present
the perspective of the UN on this topic, which was executed under the leadership of UNCTAD with contributions from the five
relevant UN agencies. The aim of this policy-oriented analysis was to facilitate a better understanding of the key issues
underlying the dynamics of the creative economy with a view to assist governments in formulating policies.
- 2008 and 2010 reports executed under the leadership of UNCTAD
- 2013 report executed under the leadership of UNESCO.
4. Interregional funding
-
The ACP Cultures+ Program is funded under the 10th European Development Fund for an amount of 30 million euros and it is
implemented by the Secretariat of the ACP Group of States.
In the context of the Interregional Framework Cooperation Agreement between the EU and MERCOSUR of 1995 currently in force,
the EU provided the MERCOSUR Audiovisual Program with 1.5 million euros (total budget 1.86 million euros).
5. Data collection and monitoring
-
The UN Interagency Technical Working Group on Cultural Industries Statistics is convened by UNESCO comprising members
from international agencies including UNDP, UNESCO Institute of Statistics, UNIDO, and WIPO. In 2007, the technical working
group published the document ‘Statistics on Cultural Industries: Framework for the Elaboration of National Data Capacity
Building Projects’.
-
A workshop on ‘International measurement of culture’ was held in December 2006 at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) organized by the Statistics Directorate. About 60 experts from OECD member states,
international organizations and academia participated. A review was made of work in progress in the field of cultural statistics by
international institutions particularly EUROSTAT, UNESCO and UNCTAD.
-
In March 2010, the European Commission Statistics Office, with the aim of debating issues related to methodologies for the
collection and dissemination of cultural statistics, convened a meeting of experts from relevant international organizations to
exchange views about their current work in this area. This meeting was a follow-up to the discussions held during UNCTAD’s Highlevel Panel on Creative Economy for Development, in Geneva in January 2008 when experts from UNCTAD, UNESCO, EUROSTAT,
OECD and WIPO addressed the Panel on Statistics.
-
Finally, the Observatory in Cultural Policies in Africa was created in 2002 with the support of the African Union, UNESCO and the
Ford Foundation. It was set up in Mozambique as an independent pan-African professional organization with a view to monitor the
evolution of culture and cultural policies in the region.

Bureaucratic cultures
In 2013, the third and special edition of the report on creative economy co-published by UNESCO and the UNDP through the
UN Office for South-South cooperation, focusing specifically on how the cultural and creative industries are at the core of local
creative economies in developing countries. On the one hand the 2008 and 2010 reports on creative economy have paid
special attention to the economic contribution of culture in development policies. This approach was influenced by the
UNCTAD, which is a more economy driven organization, favouring the statistical data, and a less field-based UN agency. On the
other hand, UNESCO and UNDP elaborated the 2013 Report, with an approach based on the qualitative evidence and the
impact of culture at the grassroots level.

Overlapping and incoherence
Since early 2000s, five projects for the establishment of cultural observatories regarding the geographical area of Americas
have been elaborated, covering the same sector, the cultural industries.
-
Ibero-american Film Observatory created in 2010 by the Conference of Ibero-American Cinematographic Authorities
specializing in audiovisual and cinematographic production.
-
MERCOSUR Audiovisual Observatory funded by the EU within the framework of the program RECAM. In 2012, the
Observatory was excluded from the main activities of the program because of lack of economic resources.
-
Observatorio del Cine y el Audiovisual Latinoamericano funded by the Spanish Agency for International Development
Cooperation.
-
Observatorio Iberoamericano de Cultura created in 2012 under the initiative of Organization of Ibero-american States for
Education, Science and Culture.
-
Inter-american Cultural Policy Observatory proposed within the plan of action of Cartagena (2002) adopted by the
Organisation of American States. Because of a lack of resources, the Inter-american Committee on Culture decided the
cancellation of the project.

Dependence on the intergovernmental factor
The UN political arena is strongly dominated by the international debate on the post-2015 agenda on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). On
this occasion, several actors advocate that culture has an essential role in the social, environmental and economic development pillars of sustainable
development and therefore it has to be explicitly integrated within the post-2015 development agenda. UNESCO is the political entrepreneur of this
mobilisation, followed especially by the UNDP, many countries from Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Pacific and cultural NGOs.
Two official UN reports were published in September and December 2014 respectively highlighting the future orientations of the post-2015
development agenda. In these documents, mentions to the culture in the broadest sense are minor, whereas the cultural and creative industries are
completely absent from the reports.
The inclusion of culture within the future UN development agenda faces a main political obstacle: the intergovernmental factor, namely the resistances
and the reluctance from the majority of European (UK, Scandinavian countries, Germany, The Netherlands) and North American (USA, Canada)
governments, which are the major contributors to the international development aid and the fundamental actors for the agenda setting.

Divergent policy agendas
The European Commission published in February 2015 a Communication regarding its views for the post-2015 development agenda setting. It is
indicative that there is no mention at all to the culture in this document, proving that the Commission keeps far from the UNESCO’s activities, even
though the ‘European Agenda for culture in a globalizing world’, launched by the Commission back in 2006 and adopted in 2007, stated explicitly that
the EU will follow an approach ‘consisting of the systematic integration of the cultural dimension and different components of culture in all external and
development policies, projects and programmes’.

Lack of material resources
IBERMEDIA was created in 1997.
The goal were to financially assist filmmakers, to promote distribution and exhibition of Ibero-American films, and finally, to sponsor exchanges and
professional training of audiovisual personnel between member nations.
In comparison with the budget of the MERCOSUR audiovisual, IBERMEDIA budget has reached 85 millions USD throughout the period 1998-2012.
Spain as the main promoter of the policy instrument and major contributor. IBERMEDIA’s offices are in Spain.

The cooperation among IOs reveals features of IO
behaviour and of global policy making that should concern
IR and PP scholars.

Various ways to think about how IOs interact each other in
global politics.

Path for research: an important avenue for future research
is to explore more precisely the action of the political
entrepreneurs for the establishment of the IOs
cooperation and their ability to build a cooperation
beyond the competition among the IOs, the different
bureaucratic cultures and capacity gaps, as well as the
governmental pressures and objections.