02/16/2023 | News release | Distributed by Public on 02/16/2023 10:48
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), with funding from the Kingdom of Norway, launches a call open to governments and public institutions of UNESCO Member States, as well as to civil society organizations, to support initiatives aimed at protecting and promoting artistic freedom, including the status of the artist.
The cultural and creative industries are major drivers of social and economic development. The creative sector contributes significantly to the global economy, representing 3.1% of global GDP and 6.2% of all employment. However, as was highlighted by the COVID-19 crisis, artists and cultural professionals often work in particularly precarious conditions. This is mainly due to the lack of an enabling legal environment that recognizes them as professionals and that protects and fosters their work in order to enable them to live off their creativity and deploy their potential to contribute to development processes and the economy.
In this context, UNESCO has launched several crisis responses in support of artists and cultural professionals. Based on broad stakeholder consultations, including recommendations from the ResiliArt movement, UNESCO has recalibrated the scope of implementation of its UNESCO-Aschberg programme for artists and cultural professionals to meet the needs expressed by governments, artists, cultural professionals and civil society organizations in accordance with the objectives of the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions as well as the 1980 Recommendation concerning the Status of the Artist.
This call for projects of the UNESCO-Aschberg programme aims to support initiatives by governments and civil society organizations whose objective is to protect and promote artistic freedom, including the status of the artist in the broad sense, that is to say:
More specifically, this call for projects includes two tracks:
To find out more about each of the two tracks, including the eligibility criteria, please read the call document carefully.
In order to submit a project proposal, applicants should:
An independent panel of experts will evaluate applications and make a recommendation to UNESCO which will decide upon successful candidates, considering the eligibility and selection criteria outlined in the call document.
For more information, please contact: [email protected].
The UNESCO-Aschberg programme is currently supported by the generous voluntary contribution of the Kingdom of Norway.