Preface - The Challenge Of Cultural Development

During the last three or four decades, interest in cultural development has escalated rapidly.

One evidence of this is the declaration by the United Nations and UNESCO of the World Decade for Cultural Development (1988-1997). Another is the creation by the same two organizations of the World Commission on Culture and Development (1993-95). Still another is the attention focused on cultural development by governments throughout the world, as well as by institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Despite the escalating interest in cultural development and the proliferation of books, articles, reports and studies on the subject, there is still very little on cultural development itself. What is cultural development? How is it defined and conceptualized? What is it designed to accomplish? How is it positioned in the overall scheme of things? How is it approached and orchestrated? And perhaps most importantly of all, what is its future?

It is questions such as these that constitute the concern of this monograph. Its purpose is to examine the nature, scope, subject matter, importance, process, and future of cultural development. As a result, it is concerned much more with the foundation, framework, definition, parameters and conceptualization of cultural development than it is with cultural development practices or cultural development experiences in different parts of the world. The need for a document of this type is readily apparent. Had sufficient consideration been given to the nature, meaning, definition, scope, and substance of development fifty years ago, the encounter with development over the last half century would have been very different from what it has proven to be.

Like other monographs in the World Culture Project, The Challenge of Cultural Development is exploratory and illustrative rather than authoritative and definitive in nature. Its purpose is to sketch out and main contours and principal features of cultural development and put enough flesh on them so that this particular concept of development can stand alongside other concepts of development as a potential guide to public and private policy and decision-making in the future.

I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to Jill Humphries, the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation and the advisors to the International Component of the World Culture Project (see Appendix) for their valuable contributions to this monograph. While recognizing these contributions, I nevertheless accept full responsibility for everything contained in the text.