Observatories on Cultural Policies:

The establishment of cultural observatories is a very recent phenomenon which appears to have began in Europe - the most notable being the Observatoire des Politiques culturelles in Grenoble, - and has since taken hold in various continents. Cultural observatories have appeared with various objectives, but essentially, they exist to observe, monitor and disseminate information back to the cultural sector.

The role of observatories on Cultural Policies can be define differently depending on the level they focus on:

At the multilateral level, the creation of observatories on cultural policies seems to be geared towards fulfilling a global clearing house responsibility in the cultural policy field, by making comparative information on cultural policies available and sharing best practices and innovative thinking in cultural policy-making and implementation.

At the regional level, the main preoccupation lies with the spread of cultural conflicts, which could be avoided by careful observation of cultural trends in a country and possibly prevent the spreading of conflicts.

At the local level, the primary goal is to help the different communities to rebuild the educational gap between informational ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

UNESCO and an Observatory on Cultural Policies:

UNESCO is to play an important role in the creation of observatories as it will carry out its core observatory and clearinghouse role by linking existing institutions and facilities that study, document and promote cultural policies and the provision of capacity-building.

UNESCO’s goal with the observatories is to stimulate thinking about ways of broadening cultural policy frameworks to provide training and advisory services for the design of cultural policies and, to improve the management and administration in and for cultural institutions and, to reinforce the advocacy and reflection on cultural policies for development. UNESCO’s final objective is to promote public policies that recognize the central role of culture in development by mobilizing and sharing information and new knowledge in this domain, facilitating the elaboration of broader policy frameworks and strengthening local capacities for this purpose.

Creation of Observatories:

Given that many national, local and regional governments as well as international and regional organizations are in the process of creating observatories on cultural policies, it has been suggested to create an “observatory of observatories”. Therefore, links to existing observatories ensures that all policy makers, researchers and the civil society have access to all of the available information.

This “International Network of Observatories on Cultural Policies” fulfills a global ‘watch’ or clearing house responsibility in the cultural policy field, by making information on cultural policies and facilities deployed by different levels of government as well as by the non-governmental, private and ‘third’ sectors available and by sharing best practice and innovative thinking in cultural policy-making and implementation.

Its objectives are to:

• Establish systematic international cooperation on information exchange so as to become a platform for access to information on main trends;
• Promote evaluative and future-oriented study of cultural policies;
• Improve the knowledge base for cultural policy design and evaluation by covering gaps, bridging differences between institutions, concepts and approaches as well as demonstrating to decision makers the utility of policy-enabling research.

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