Cultural participation and local resilience

Strategies for the recovery - First series of OECD Policy Webinar

From 1st December 2020 to 3rd December 2020

From 1-3 December 2020, the OECD is organising a series of policy webinars under the theme Cultural participation and local resilience: Strategies for the recovery. Registration are open until 30 November 2020. Shall you wish to present a case study and present during members-only sessions, please submit before 20 November 2020 using the same link.

These webinars will provide an opportunity to learn from latest academic evidence on the economic and social impacts of cultural participation, approaches to better measure it at a regional level and instruments to increase it.

The direct and indirect impacts of culture on local development are largely achieved through cultural participation and access of diverse groups to cultural amenities and activities. Cultural participation is linked to a number of areas of social and economic impact:

• Social inclusion: access to cultural opportunities is far from uniform and depends on a variety of factors such as income, education, ethnicity. Analysis of cultural participation patterns could help highlight mechanisms of social exclusion. On the other hand, promotion of cultural participation may serve to mitigate factors of social and economic marginalization.
• Well-being and health: The COVID-19 related lockdown has made evident the importance of culture for people’s mental well-being and, possibly, also health. This recognition provides a new opportunity to capitalise on the role of culture in the prevention and treatment of illness across the lifespan, contributing to solutions for health and welfare systems.
• Cultural and creative entrepreneurship: High levels of cultural participation might be conducive to a favourable social environment for cultural and creative entrepreneurship, thereby enhancing the impact of cultural and creative production on job creation.
• Tackling societal challenges: In many cities and regions, cultural participation is being used to tackle societal challenges (e.g. climate change) from new angles, favouring resilience, skills creation and prosocial behavioural changes. 

Agenda is available here.

Author: Houpert Cecile - EUROCITIES