The Evolution of Global Development Goals
In 2000, the United Nations (UN) member states set out eight global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were supported by other multilateral organizations. These goals ranged from reducing hunger and empowering women to lowering child mortality and promoting environmental sustainability. However, by 2015, these MDGs were not fully achieved, leading to the creation of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at being accomplished by 2030. This updated list was largely a response to growing climate threats and urbanization, while also incorporating aspects of well-being and healthy living.
The focus is now on developing the next agenda after 2030. There is a growing push to include culture as a goal. Nowhere was this effort more evident than at the recent global cultural policy meeting called Mondiacult, held every three years by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Why Culture Matters as an SDG
Ribio Nzeza Bunketi Buse, a scholar of cultural development, explains why a culture SDG matters. Since 1982, several meetings have emphasized the link between culture and sustainable development. Now there’s a call for it to be a standalone SDG in the post-2030 development agenda.
A strong argument is made in the UNESCO global report on cultural policies, released during Mondiacult in September 2025. According to this report, 93% of responding member states affirm that culture is a central point in their national sustainable development plans. This is an increase from 88% four years ago.
The document also reports that cultural and creative industries account for 3.39% of the global gross domestic product (a measure of the health of an economy) and 3.55% of jobs. That makes it comparable to the automotive sector. Cultural tourism generates US$741.3 billion in 250 cities each year.
Given this, there’s a broad consensus that culture is one of the keys to sustainable economic development. But it goes deeper.
UNESCO defines culture as:A set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a society or social group including not only arts and letters, but modes of life, value systems, traditions and beliefs.
From this definition, culture is a human right. The final declaration of Mondiacult 2025 recognizes it as such, alongside other human rights. Indeed, many countries’ constitutions and other international conventions, like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, recognize this.
If the 17 SDGs (like education, gender equality and healthy living) are related to human rights, why should culture, which is also a human right, not be an SDG?
The Road to a Culture SDG
To get there, the Mondiacult declaration reinforces that culture needs to be emphasized and endorsed in the 2030 development agenda.
The Culture Committee of the United Cities and Local Governments organization campaigned for culture to be included in the post-2015 development agenda. (Since its 2004 Agenda 21 for Culture initiative, the organization has worked to include culture in local and regional development.)
In 2022, a network of leading global cultural organizations began an advocacy campaign for culture to be a dedicated SDG. The #Culture2030Goal campaign’s draft zero has five focus areas:
- adequate attention to culture at the highest level of government
- recognize connections between culture and other policy areas
- the culture sector must feel a sense of engagement in and ownership of the goal
- mobilize power of culture for all other goals
- achievement of all goals through a cultural lens.
The campaign formulated culture as an SDG as follows:
Ensure cultural sustainability for the wellbeing of all.
Sustainability is culture’s capacity to endure over time and also speaks to new thinking about sustainability for a healthier future for the world.
The Impact of a Culture SDG
A standalone SDG would recognize culture as a global public good that all countries should protect. This would draw attention to culture as an area of intervention. Justin O’Connor, a professor of cultural economy, writes in the Cultural Policy Forum that:
A specific goal is needed to better coordinate culture’s contribution to each and every goal, and to make it mandatory for governments and agencies to pay attention to it, and hopefully direct resources to it.
So, it would also encourage governments to take culture into account in their national economic development agendas.
Challenges Ahead
There are two main constraints in the path to culture becoming an SDG: the understanding of its role for development; and the capacity of policymakers to give it the necessary space.
Mondiacult 2022 recommended including culture in the UN’s 2024 Summit of the Future, and that was successful. In fact, Action 11 of the summit’s final document Pact for the Future includes culture. However, it is associated with sport, and is not considered a stand-alone issue.
Against this backdrop, the ambition of having culture as an SDG still has a way to go. There is no set timeline. It all depends on how negotiations evolve among multiple UN stakeholders (international agencies and member states) in the preparation process for the post-2030 agenda.
Although South Africa is leading the 2025 G20 meetings, where culture is firmly on the agenda, Africa can still play a far stronger mobilizing role among the world’s leaders, to convince them to come on board.