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 organisations, 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 recognises 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 organisations 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 organisations whose objective is to protect and promote artistic freedom, including the status of the artist in the broad sense, that is to say:
- The right to have artistic work supported, distributed, and remunerated.
- Artists’ right to freedom of movement.
- Artists’ right to freedom of association.
- The protection of the social and economic rights of artists.
- The right to participate in cultural life.
- The right to create without censorship.
More specifically, this call for projects includes two tracks:
- Track 1, open to governments and public institutions: technical assistance aimed at revising or designing new regulatory frameworks (laws, policies, measures, etc.) that protect and promote artistic freedom, including the status of the artist and cultural professionals. In addition to the technical expertise provided by the UNESCO-Aschberg programme through national/international experts, financial support for up to 30,000 USD can be requested.
- Track 2, open to civil society organisations: financial assistance in the implementation of innovative projects aimed at advancing the issue of artistic freedom, including the status of the artist at the local, national, regional or international level. (e.g. capacity building, advocacy, monitoring and research activities, etc.). The ceiling for requests for financial assistance is set at 50,000 USD.
