Local Culture in a Global World Why Does Culture Count

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Local Culture in a Global WorldWhy Does Culture
Count?

• Eleanor E. Fink
• Senior Cultural Heritage Specialist
• Global Development Gateway
• World Bank

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I. Introduction Local Culture in a
Global World

• "The context for humanistic scholarship in the
  next century will be at once local, national, and
  global. The humanities will make their
  connection to society at the local level, but
  this local focus will be inherently cosmopolitan,
  made so in part by the movement of peoples and
  ideas on a global scale.
• Thomas
  Bender
• Cultural Historian

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Introduction cont.

• A huge change in communications technology has
  produced an era where the power exists to take
  local issues and globalize them, e.g. the movie
  The Beach.
• - a small community was able to mobilize hundreds
  of e-mail letters from around the
• world to protest planting non-native trees on
  their beach.

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Introduction cont.

• The result is a market that produces in nano
  seconds.
• Some of the challenges we face are
• How to effectively harness this market.
• The role we choose to play (proactive or
  reactive?).
• In other words, are we willing to engage the full
  potential of the internet?

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Introduction cont.

• The Internet is not just about sharing or
  accessing information. It is increasingly
  becoming a medium for cooperation and
  interworkability.
• - Interworkability is a concept I am promoting.
  It centers on stakeholders using a common space
  on the internet to build a resource together such
  as a portal, gateway, database, thesaurus, etc.
  Simply linking, hosting, and/or exchanging
  information is not interworkability.

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Introduction cont.

• The potential for interworkability is reflected
  in the following internet trends
• The emergence of thematic gateways.
• Attention to the notion of communities.

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Introduction cont.

• One of the underlying motivations for thematic
  gateways and communities is that the Internet
  scene --- made up of private institutional home'
  pages, each with a fenced-in-gardenalso needs a
  public space or a Commons where ideas and
  knowledge can easily be found.

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Introduction cont.

• For the topic of culture and development the
  ability to create a gateway that simplifies
  access to who we are and the value of what we do
  is critical...

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Introduction cont.

• It can create a synergistic effect that can help
  
• quantify the efficacy and contribution of
  culture that
• can act as an argument for providing political
  support . This is critical in an increasingly
  knowledge and information based economy.
• Understanding the value and role of culture is
  still a challenge for economists and development
  banks.
• e.g. CIDOC Newsletter article on sustainability
  of museums and the need for performance
  indicators.

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Introduction cont.

• A Gateway can engage participants self interest
  and bridge non-communication among professional
  groups.
• For example, art theft is a global problem. The
  way to impede it is for all parties concerned to
  work together and agree on a common method of
  documenting objects and move that information
  rapidly.

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Introduction cont.

• The Object ID Standard bridged the need to
  reach agreement on a common standard to help
  uniquely identify cultural objects in order to
  combat illicit traffic in stolen art by uniting
  such diverse groups as
• police, art appraisers, museums, insurance
  companies, dealers, commercial art theft
  databases and standards organizations.

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Introduction cont.

• In an era of globalization it can also serve as a
  vehicle for giving voice to local identity and
  celebrating diversity.
• The very technologies that many fear could
  dilute may promote the opposite.
• 
  Queen Noor
• In essence it can help to preserve and
  protect local culture.

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Introduction cont.

• Although we may not yet have a Garden of Eden, we
  have come a long way from the time when we were
  just building a weed patch.
• "Sharing Cultural Entitlements in the Digital
  Age Are we building a Garden of Eden or a Patch
  of Weeds". Eleanor E. Fink, Keynote, First
  Museums and Web Conference, 1997.

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II. The World Bank and CultureWhy Culture
Counts?
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II. The World Bank and CultureWhy Culture
Counts?

• An example of the value of culture can be seen in
  the role it is playing at the World Bank.
• The World Bank is the world's largest
• source of development assistance, providing
• nearly 30 billion in loans annually to over
• 100 client countries.

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The World Bank cont.

• The Bank uses its financial resources and
  knowledge base to individually help each
  developing country onto a path of stable,
  sustainable, and equitable growth. The main focus
  is on helping the poorest people and the poorest
  countries.

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The World Bank cont.

• The Banks mission to reduce poverty
• responds to some staggering statistics
• Of the 4.7 billion people who live in the 100
  countries that are World Bank clients
• 3 billion live on less than 2 a day and 1.3
  billion on less than 1 a day.
• 40,000 die of preventable diseases every day.
• 130 million never have an opportunity to go to
  school.
• 1.3 billion do not have clean water to drink.

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The World Bank cont.

• Given these staggering statistics, why is culture
  a priority?
• As globalization draws us all into greater
  proximity, it is essential that we nurture,
  prize, and support the diverse cultures and
  historical experiences of the countries in which
  The World Bank operates. We simply cannot
  conceive of development without cultural
  continuity.
• James D. Wolfensohn
• President, the
  World Bank

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The World Bank cont.

• Whether they live on the plains or in the
  valleys, whether they live in slums or isolated
  villages, whether they speak Hindi, Swahili, or
  Uzbek, people have one thing in common They do
  not want charity. They want a chance. They do
  not want solutions imposed from without. They
  want the opportunity to build from within. They
  do not want my culture or yours. They want their
  own. They want a future enriched by the
  inheritance of their past.
• James D. Wolfensohn
• President, the
  World Bank

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The World Bank cont.

• As pointed out by James Wolfensohn, culture is a
  critical component of development because
• Culture influences what is valued in a society
  in
• particular, it shapes the ends of
  development
• that are valuable to the poor.
• Culture also influences how individuals,
• communities, informal and formal institutions
  
• respond to developmental changes, therefore,
• knowledge of culture is a means to effective
• poverty reduction.

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The World Bank cont.

• From a development perspective culture is
• a means of
• Making development actions more effective and
  meaningful by ensuring that projects reflect the
  lives and interests of the people they serve.
• Helping the poor to use their cultural assets
  creative expression, skills, traditional
  knowledge and cultural resources to earn
  income, and improve well-being, social
  organization, and social functioning.

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The World Bank cont.

• From an economic perspective a focus on culture
  creates
• New jobs and services in such areas as preserving
  historic cities, creating conservation zones,
  building arts centers and heritage trusts,
  teaching local communities to take care of their
  monuments and sites.
• Opportunities for strategic product development
  such as access to e-commerce for marketing art
  and crafts and
• New enterprises such as the development of
  cooperatives to manage intellectual property
  rights the establishment of community based
  cultural tourism, etc.

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Mainstreaming Culture at the World Bank

• Learning Research on Culture and Poverty a
  program funded by the Dutch Government in
  collaboration with Nobel Prize Laureate, Amatrya
  Sen, the Banks Poverty Group, the Development
  Economics Research Group, and the Social
  Development Group of the Environmentally and
  Socially Sustainable Development Network.

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Mainstreaming Culture Cont.

• The program is designing pilot projects that
  will provide economic base line information in
  four areas
• Creative Expression, Cultural Industries and
  Poverty Reduction.
• Voice and Participation
• Globalizing Forces and Identity
• Intellectual Rights and Poverty Reduction

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Mainstreaming Culture Cont.

• Over 50 Bank loans currently have cultural
  components that include building new museums,
  community based management of sites and
  monuments, cultural tourism, establishing
  conservation zones in urban upgrading projects,
  establishing inventories of cultural assets,
  marketing crafts, preservation of libraries and
  archives, establishing heritage trusts, policy
  development, etc.

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Mainstreaming Culture Cont.

• Conferences are being held on many of the above
  themes in developing countries, e.g.
  China-Cultural Heritage Management and Urban
  Development Challenge and Opportunity.
• - I designed a workshop for the China conference
  on the value of Documentation standards and
  recording techniques for establishing
  inventories.

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III. Global Development Gateway

• And now the Bank has launched an innovative
  Internet initiative, the Global Development
  Gateway that has produced a portal for culture
  and development.

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Global Development Gateway

• Where Worlds of Knowledge Meet
• www worldbank.org/gateway

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• The Gateway is an Internet initiative being
  established to serve the broadest possible
  development community both globally and through
  Country Gateways.
• The overarching goal of the Gateway is to use the
  Internet as a tool to reduce poverty and to
  support sustainable development by building a
  common platform in partnership with the donor
  community, government, the private sector, civil
  society organizations, and other key partners.

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• It will enable development partners around the
  world to share information on development
  activities, trends, funding, and commercial
  opportunities.
• The Project has two main elements the Global
  Gateway and Country Gateways.

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Global Gateway portals will serve the needs of
  community groups, governments, private sector,
  and donor agencies by aggregating knowledge at a
  global topic level.
• Country Gateways will aggregate local knowledge
  by serving as portals to specific countries and
  will be tailored to the same groups as the Global
  Gateway.

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Country Gateways
• Several country gateways are at an advanced
  planning stage
• Armenia, Azerbaijan, Dominican Republic,
  Georgia, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova,
  Morocco, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russia,
  Turkistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, West Bank/Gaza.

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Global level development topicsCountry Gateways
for each of the Banks client countries that
focus on local information
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Global Development Gateway cont.

• The synergy between the treatment of development
  topics at a global level and the aggregation of
  local information at the country gateway level
  results in a powerful tool that provides depth of
  knowledge and unique opportunities for aligning
  common interests and strategies.

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Global Development Gateway cont.
Global and Country Gateway services will include

• online training modules and tools
• research findings
• best practices and ideas
• case studies
• procurement services
• information on development projects
• funding and commercial opportunities
• product reviews
• news, jobs, and directories
• All tailored to the needs of specific audiences
  such as community leaders, private investors,
  policymakers, local government officials, and
  academics.

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Build Communities
• The Gateway will provide an innovative framework
  in which stakeholders can share knowledge and
  build communities across countries and sectors.

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Bottom-up Contributions of Content
• Not only will partners and users be able to
  access information, resources, and tools, they
  will be able to contribute their own knowledge
  and experience creating a common space for
  shared material, dialogue, and problem-solving
  that is easier to access and navigate than the
  current wealth of information on the Internet.

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• To ensure a fresh approach, the Global
  Development Gateway Foundation, Inc., an
  independent nonprofit organization, has been
  established to manage the Global Development
  Gateway.
• The Foundation will be governed by a Board of
  Directors and assisted by an Operations Advisory
  Committee whose members will be selected from
  many different constituencies in the development
  community.

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Unique Features
• Open to content contribution (bottom-up design)
• Ability to search across the entire Gateway
  (Global and Country levels) by key word
• A project finder search tool (based on an
  international mark-up-language)
• Support of multiple languages
• Brokering or match-making
• Procurement opportunities

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Gateway Collaborators
• Business Partners (Bloomberg, AOL, Microsoft,
  Gates Foundation, Softbank)
• Donor Agencies (MDBs, Bilateral)
• Cooperating Knowledge Source Institutions
• NGOs/Country Gateways
• Pvt Sector Organizations SMEs, Micro enterprise
• UN Systems Agencies
• Topic Community Guides

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Current Communities Under Development
• Donor Agencies
• The Faith Organizations Page
• The Indigenous Peoples Page
• The Mayors Page
• The NGOs Page
• The Private Sector Page

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Current Global Topics under development
• Agriculture
• Food Security Food Policy, Forestry,
  more...
• Aid Organizations
• Aid Effectiveness, Aid Coordination, ...
• Culture and Development
• Arts, Crafts, Media, Heritage Preservation,Manage
  ment, Cultural Tourism..
• Disaster Management
• Risk Identification, Risk Reduction, Risk
  Transfer,
• Early Child Development
• Early Child Development - Latin America...
• Macroeconomics and Economic Growth
• Economic Growth, Adjustment Lending
• Energy
• Energy Efficiency

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Energy
• Energy Efficiency
• Gender and Development
• Gender and Human Development, Gender and
• Social Issues, Gender, Governance, Law...
• HIV/AIDS
• Law and Development
• Law Justice, Banking and Insolvency Law
• Poverty
• Impact Evaluation...
• Private Sector Development
• Small and Medium Enterprises...
• Transport
• Roads Highways, Ports Rails...
• Urban
• Urban Municipal Finance, Upgrading Urban
  Communities,...
• Water
• Water Resources Management, Water and
  Sanitation

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Collaborators in planning and design already
  include
• Alpnet, Inc.
• America Online, Inc. (AOL)
• ArsDigita
• Association for the Development of Education in
  Africa (ADEA)
• Asociación Latinamericana de Organizaciones de
  Promoción (ALOP)
• Asociación Nacional de Centros (ANC)
• Autonomy, Inc.
• Bellanet
• Bloomberg

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Cambridge Technology Partners
• City University of London
• Cornell University
• CS Associates
• Dept. for International Development(DFID)
• Development Alternatives Group
• Eldis at the University of Sussex
• Fondo Indígena
• Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
• Forum One Communications
• Fundación Acceso
• IBISCUS
• IBM Corporation
• India Development Information

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Global Development Gateway cont.

• Where Worlds of Knowledge Meet
• An Invitation to Participate
• www.worldbank.org/gateway