Event | Culture Beyond Borders:

UNESCO and partners will be organizing a linked event on “Empowering Refugees through Cultural Rights for Inclusion and Resilience” on 12 December 2023 at the Hilton Hotel and Conference Center (Geneva, Switzerland) in the margins of the 2023 Global Refugee Forum. 

While the issue of refugees is often considered from a security or economic perspective, the cultural dimension of leaving one’s home is often overlooked. Around the world, setbacks and infringements of cultural rights certainly slow down and potentially jeopardize the capacity of displaced populations, including refugees, to find their place, integrate and contribute to society. Ensuring the respect of cultural rights can be a powerful lever to address the vulnerability of refugees and enhance social inclusion and cohesion in host communities, in a context where displacements are increasing as a result of global challenges such as conflict and natural hazards. While displacement often entails the disruption of cultural practices and identities, enabling displaced populations to sustain their cultural practices is essential for their resilience and sense of dignity. Empowering refugees, especially youth and women, through education, training, and cash-for-work projects related to cultural heritage, supports livelihoods and job creation. Likewise, allowing refugees to access cultural services and participate in cultural life, including that of the host country and of other communities, is essential to enable intercultural dialogue, and foster social cohesion, thereby preventing conflict and contributing to building peace.

The linked event will shed light on the critical importance of protecting cultural rights of refugees and displaced people, together with their social and economic rights, as a central component of their fundamental human rights, and as a cornerstone of sustainable and peaceful societies. The event will be organised by the Interagency Platform on Culture for Sustainable Development, under the aegis of UNESCO, and in cooperation with OHCHR and ILO. The special event will be opened by the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights and is expected to kickstart the shaping of a preliminary roadmap on refugees and cultural rights, to be further developed and implemented as part of the UN Common pledge 2.0 on refugee inclusion.

The event will take place on 12 December 2023, from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m., in the Oslo Room, at the Hilton Hotel and Conference Center (Geneva, Switzerland). It will include a 60-minute roundtable discussion, featuring interventions from partner UN agencies (UNESCO, OHCHR, ILO) as well as refugee participants. The event will be conducted in hybrid modality and will be livestreamed with a view to engage more broadly partners and communities in shaping and implementing the preliminary roadmap. 

This linked-event is organized with the support of the UNESCO Heritage Emergency Fund. We wish to thank its donors: