The New Unesco International Fund for the Promotion of Culture

Leonardo, Vol. 8, pp. 223-224. Pergamon Press 1975. Printed in Great Britain THE NEW UNESCO INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR THE PROMOTION OF CULTURE Alfred E. Davidson* In August 1970 a regional Caribbean Cultural Conference was held in Kingston, Jamaica, under the sponsorship of Unesco, the Government of Jamaica and the University of the West Indies. At the Conference, Edward Seaga, Minister of Finance of Jamaica, suggestedthat an international fund or bank for the promotion of culture should be established. He stated: ‘The truth was that there was no established institution capable of providing enough resources to make a significant impact on the development of culture or the work of conservation in the developing countries of the world. Cultural development had not been a project eligible for World Bank finance. Unesco was an executing agency and was not provided with the necessary resources like other United Nations agencies. Unesco contributions to projects of that kind were considerably limited as regards the funds it could supply for cultural development and conservation projects’ [l]. In a series of succeedingUnesco meetings dealing with cultural questions, support for the setting up of such a bank or fund came from many nations. This effort culminated in the establishment by the Unesco General Conference in November 1974 of The International Fundfor the Promotion of Culture as an organ of Unesco [2]. The headquarters of the Fund are to be located in Paris. It would be difficult to find, except perhaps in wartime, a parallel for such speedy action in international affairs. There was a lapse of only a little more than four years between the suggestion for such a body and its actual establishment. The Fund, in a conceptual sense, rests upon the proposition advanced by RenC Maheu, former Director-General of Unesco, in 1970 at Venice, shortly after Seaga’s proposal, that cultural development is an integral part of overall national or regional development. The term culture for the Fund is undefined but includes painting, sculpture, music, dance, writing and other kinds of fine art, their propagation by the mass media and research, training and education in the arts. Underlying this thought is the unexpressed assumption that art * Lawyer (USA.) living at 5 rue de la Manutention, 75016 Paris, France,and a member of the Unesco Working Party concerned with the establishment of the Fund. (Received 8 Feb. 1975.) plays an essential part in the lives of all people, not only in the lives of the small percentage of the population that is highly educated or rich. The view of the Founder-Editor of Leonardo, Frank J. Malina, is different, for he has written to me as follows: ‘The likely explanation for the low priority that governments give in their budgets for cultural activities, in particular for the visual fine arts, is that the masses of the people do not find that these arts play a vital role in their lives. Efforts in some countries to develop art appreciation have not met with noteworthy success but artists and others in the world of art continue to assume, unrealistically, that their activities are of general major significance to all people and, therefore, should be given major financial and other support by governments’ [3]. The Fund will not be financed through Unesco’s regular budget but will depend upon voluntary contributions from governments and from private organizations and individuals and such money as the Fund can earn through its own activities. Its abilityto mobilizefunds for the promotion of the arts on a scale worthy of an international organization will provide at least another monetary test as to whether art plays a vital part in the life of people generally. The fact that the Fund was created at a time of economic crisis in Western industrial nations I find in itself significant, The arts are usually the first to feel the impact of economic crises and, in fact, with few exceptions, artists of all types and museums, concert orchestras and theaters perenially have financial difficulties. It is my view, however, that, regardless of the extent of financial support given to the Fund and regardless of the relatively small number of people now directly concerned with the arts, the lives...