Culture, the path to sustainable development

Culture is a instrument for social progressly plays a cross-cutting and crucial role in the path towards equal opportunities set by the 2030 Agenda. There is no specific Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) defined for it, but goals such as gender equality, decent work and economic growth, or the sustainability of cities and communities, are imbued with the values ​​that culture offers to our life in society.

a vital contribution that we now feel with special force after an experience as hard as the one we have been forced to live during the pandemic. Reading books, listening to music, virtually visiting museums, watching movies, plays or video shows were the only doors we were able to open during the months of confinement. Culture helped us to breathe together and to shorten physical distances.

Today we are more aware than ever of our need for culture. The Government of Spain has taken good note of this, the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan considers culture and sport a leverage policy, in line with the sustainability principles set out by the European Union, to give them a renewed impetus in this stage of rebirth that we are undertaking.

In this sense, European funds will contribute to invigorate culture throughout the territory, expanding and diversifying the cultural offer in non-urban areas. But also to the modernization and sustainable management of infrastructures of the scenic and musical arts, or the conservation, restoration and enhancement of heritage. And of course, the endowment to the libraries of digital and paper books.

In the museum field, the plan not only addresses digital transformation but also ecological transformation of state museums, within the framework of the Museums + Social Plan. And to make our cities more sustainable environments, we work on projects such as the old Tabacalera de Madrid, which aims to be meeting point for artists from all over the territory in connection with the multicultural Lavapiés neighborhood.

Gender equality also commits us on this path. Both in sport and in culture. And the cinema is an example. Last year, the ministry strengthened its support for women filmmakers, almost doubling aid and ensuring that 35% of the endowment goes to projects led by women. The Goya Awards were a reflection of this change in trend: for the first time, the directors equaled the directors.

And if we mean reading, Libraries assume that their nature responds to the spirit of the 2030 Agenda. This is evidenced by this Ibero-American Year of Libraries, the result of the alliance – a key goal in the SDGs – sealed at the XX Ibero-American Conference of Ministers of Culture of Ibero-America.

The inaugural seminar Libraries and the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda made it clear: our libraries are open, inclusive, free and free spaces.

But literature, cinema, music, theater or painting are not intangible. They create jobs and create wealth. Culture is an industry that adds more than 700,000 jobs in Spain, with a contribution of 3.4% to GDP.

Its impulse, focused on the SDG referring to work and the economy, goes through priority actions such as the Statute of the Artist, a framework that will give recognition and legal security to professionals. Or the Audiovisual HUB, which foresees a public investment of 1,603 million euros until 2025 to increase audiovisual production in Spain.

Culture is offered to us as the engine of sustainable development, deeply inspiring its principles. Hence the need for administrations to take specific and powerful measures to promote cultural activities.

That we achieve a horizon of coexistence marked by economic prosperity, inclusion and environmental protection commits us to culture. With his hand we have to walk the path to, together, build a better world.

*** Miquel Iceta is Minister of Culture and Sports.

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