That habit of talking

On May 21, we celebrate the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, a commemoration proclaimed in a United Nations resolution, which was part of a debate in which the very notion of development was renewed.

In its first report (1990), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) had advanced a concept not focused on economic growth, but on creating opportunities "for human beings to enjoy a long, healthy and creative”.

Those opportunities include “political, economic and social freedom, the possibility to be creative and productive, to respect oneself and to enjoy the guarantee of human rights”.

This conceptual renewal was fueled by the influential analyzes of Amartya Sen, which start from the idea that culture is central to development and that cultural processes are not inherently good or bad;

not static either.

On the contrary, they can be at the base of inequality and exclusion and, at the same time, they can be the source of profound social and economic transformations thanks to their impact on aspirations and collective action.

Sen rejects the idea of ​​a cultural determinism that condemns some groups to poverty and raises key questions such as the balance between globalization and cultural identity.

Indeed, culture is not only something more than an object of cultural policies or a driver of relations between states, but rather it expresses the values ​​and ideals with which a community identifies and creates its present and future.

The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, promulgated in 2005, focuses mainly on cultural manifestations produced by artists and professionals in this field.

However, in the report published 10 years later,

, UNESCO recognizes the need to update this approach to focus on people and communities when addressing the sustainability of their development, and not so much on the preservation of cultural goods and products.

"Our theme is cultural diversity and not the substitutes to which it is sometimes reduced," the document states.

For this reason, the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development gives us the opportunity to reflect on the importance of intercultural dialogue, diversity and inclusion, to address global, environmental, economic and social challenges.

And, above all, to achieve peace, which is currently so threatened.

The analysis of factors such as migration, climate change or the increase in conflicts cannot ignore the ideological, ethnic or religious components

The AECID has prepared the

, with which it attempts to contribute to this reflection and offer practical tools to channel a cultural diversity approach into development programs and projects.

Like any social process, managing cultural diversity entails great complexity;

It means managing the dialogue between different cultural references for a peaceful coexistence, based on respect and appreciation of the views of those who are different.

In addition, the analysis of factors such as migration, climate change or the increase in conflicts cannot ignore the ideological, ethnic or religious components.

It also means rethinking the development model and the international cooperation framework.

The main challenge, as reflected in the 2030 Agenda, is to achieve sustainability, not only environmental, but also social and cultural.

A cultural diversity approach leads us to a change in the views of the international context of development.

This is structured on the basis of a donor North versus a receiving South, as if there were a universal model of development and forgetting that innovation in the search for global solutions feeds on the participation of all.

The theory is very good.

It is much more difficult to put it into practice.

Severino Ngoenha, a Mozambican philosopher and humanist and a fundamental voice in the African sphere, and Salvador Forquilha, an expert in citizenship and governance and a member of the scientific council of the Institute of Social and Economic Studies (IESE) of Maputo, are developing a project of international dialogue -religious in the north of Mozambique, which has experienced extreme violence in recent years.

They do so accompanied by the AECID in the country and the Agency's Department of Cooperation and Cultural Promotion.

To begin with, they have sat around a table with different religious leaders, leaders in their respective communities, to try to unravel the causes of conflicts that have a visible face in religious divergences.

The open, respectful dialogue, involved in the search for solutions, has led to the recognition of the deep causes of inequality, multiple ethnic identity conflicts and, deep down, power relations.

The conversation between the different cultural groups, education, respect for those who are different, making diversity visible in the media, make up the model they propose, especially aimed at children and youth.

The reinforcement of cultural identity, of which we speak so much, must always be accompanied by respect for cultural diversity, as a community value and a path to peace.

As doctors Ngoenha and Forquilha point out, it is about creating the habit of dialogue.

We have also accompanied processes in Colombia for the knowledge and recognition of inequalities, violence and human rights violations.

In the steps to reach communities in peace, community archives and museums are serving to channel the recovery of memory, preserve and give visibility to oral, visual and written documents, a reflection of that diversity linked to human rights;

archives, museums and libraries are becoming meeting places for peace.

Perhaps the conclusion regarding cultural diversity is to think that the contributions of all the referents will make it possible to originate respectful and culturally sustainable development processes;

attentive to the various narratives based on new ways of looking at the other, without turning these cultural references into stereotypes that paralyze communities, preventing their own cultural evolution.

Cervantes already said it in the

: "Walking the land and communicating with different people makes men discreet."

Ana Mª Sánchez Salcedo

is a technician for Cooperation in Culture and Cultural Heritage for Development at the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).

You can follow PLANETA FUTURO on

to our 'newsletter'

.