In post-conflict and post-disaster situations, the recognition of cultural diversity, encompassing both heritage and creativity, can serve as a positive force behind dialogue, mutual understanding, reconciliation, social stability and reconstruction.
UNESCO works in such areas as promoting good practices in the area of intercommunity mediation; developing intercultural sensitivity particularly among young people; encouraging the exchange of cultural goods and expressions as well as encounters between cultural actors; and revealing the multifaceted nature of history and the so-called “national culture”.

Such actions – carried out by UNESCO in a number of post-crisis and “peacebuilding” settings around the world – can contribute to the construction of a more peaceful and stable for communities that have suffered at the hands of humankind or the forces of nature.