One World | Swiss Development & Cooperation magazine - focus on culture

The latest issue of the Swiss Development and Cooperation's "One World" magazine (4/2020) focuses on the relationship between culture and development, including an interview with the UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights, among others.

In the special Culture Dossier, you can read articles including:

• Culture - the underrated soft power

The freedom of artistic expression and to practise one's own culture is under threat worldwide. Yet this very freedom has tremendous potential to bring about social change, pluralistic societies and sustainable development.

• "It's difficult to imagine development without the arts and culture"

Karima Bennoune is the UN’s special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights. In this interview she talks about the significance of the arts and culture for development cooperation and countering extremism.

• Facts and Figures

The SDC's cultural activities in Switzerland

Besides supporting culture in other countries, the SDC also helps professional artists from Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe to access Swiss audiences as well as the country's cultural market and professional networks. To that end, it has entered into long-term partnerships with professional associations in the Swiss cultural sector, such as the film foundation trigon film, which has been selecting and showing films from Latin America, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe in Swiss cinemas since 1988. The foundation also operates its own DVD edition and a streaming platform called filmingo.ch to make such films available in the long term. The Visions Sud Est fund also promotes film productions from the South and East. Apart from providing financial support, the fund provides visibility to these works and facilitates their distribution in Switzerland. Culture institutions in Switzerland can also apply to the SüdKulturFonds to obtain shortfall guarantees and financial assistance for projects involving productions and events featuring artists from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

For more information visit: artlink.ch; trigon-film.org and visionssudest.ch

Image: Dance drama about the neglected victims of forced marriages during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. © Nobuyuki Arai