From 17 to 19 September the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, travelled to Cuba to participate in the Third Meeting of Ministers of Culture of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). The Director-General spoke at the official inauguration of the meeting and presided over the preceding UNESCO Workshop, where the 2016-2021 UNESCO Regional Work Plan for Culture was adopted. During her visit, Ms Bokova met with H.E. Mr Raúl Castro Ruz, president of the Republic of Cuba. She also presented Dr Eusebio Leal Spengler, Historian of the City of Havana, with the UNESCO 70th Anniversary Medal. The Director-General was accompanied on her trip to Cuba by Mr Alfredo Pérez de Armiñán, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture at the time, who, among other collateral activities, visited the New Latin American Cinema Foundation (FNCL).

The UNESCO Regional Work Plan for Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean, adopted at the Workshop organized by UNESCO within the framework of the Third Meeting of Ministers of Culture of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), proposes concrete actions to be developed at the national and regional levels during this period in order to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted during the United Nations Summit held from 25 to 27 September 2015 at UN Headquarters in New York. It is an important tool for guiding the cultural work of UNESCO and its Member States in the region between 2016 and 2021.

The UNESCO Office in Havana worked intensely to support the Organization and its Member States in the efforts to have Culture included in the Sustainable Development Goals. The UNESCO Work Plan for Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean, adopted at the Workshop held within the framework of the Third Meeting of Ministers of Culture of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), as well as its Final Declaration and the Cultural Action Plan are aimed at supporting the achievement of the SDGs. The Portal of Culture of Latin America and the Caribbean constantly updated its page on this theme as well as the information on the actions implemented in the region to this end. In addition, during 2015 issues no. 12 and 13 of Culture & Development magazine were published. UNESCO Havana was in charge of representing the Organization at the Fourth CELAC Meeting of Regional and Subregional Integration Mechanisms held in the Dominican Republic, an event where important lines of development were identified, including those relative to culture.

The Portal of Culture of Latin America and the Caribbean disseminated the main actions undertaken by UNESCO Havana in order to protect this heritage, including the 5th Workshop “UNESCO and Heritage: what, how, when, where and why communicate it?”, conducted as part of the 5th International Diploma Course “Media to Communicate Heritage”. In addition, the International Symposium on Archaeological Heritage (Camagüey, Cuba) and the International Seminar on the Rehabilitation of Historic Centres (Lima, Peru), which counted with the auspices and the participation of the Office, were also covered. Likewise, the Portal disseminated the 39th Meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) and the new inscriptions on the World Heritage List of sites in Jamaica, Mexico and Uruguay. The designation of Cuba as a WHC member, and the acknowledgment made by the President of the UNESCO General Conference, Mr Hao Ping, regarding the work of this Member State in heritage preservation, and the importance of the UNESCO Office in Havana, were highlighted. The calls made by UNESCO and other international organizations were widely disseminated through the Portal and its contacts, among them, the World Heritage Youth Project on Marine Diversity & Climate Change, Unite4Heritage and its photo and story contest; the Digital Photography Competition: Crossing Viewpoints: Industrial Heritage in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, and the poster contest “Colonia del Sacramento: World Heritage and Sustainable Development”. The Portal of Culture published, in addition, close to 150 important actions implemented in the region with a view to the protection of this heritage and the application of the 1972 Convention, illustrated with some of the actions developed in Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

UNESCO Havana continued to promote the Caribbean Action Plan for World Heritage (2014-2019), adopted in November 2014, which establishes the work priorities for the next four years in matters of conservation and management; the preparation of Tentative Lists and nominations for the World Heritage List; risk management; community participation; sustainable tourism; capacity-building and the creation of partnerships. The Portal of Culture published and promoted the document in Spanish, English and French. The meeting with the Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth of Barbados was inscribed among the collaboration actions within the framework of this Plan.

The Segundo Cabo Palace, a multilateral cooperation project between the European Union and UNESCO that came to a close at the end of 2014, is already hosting activities as the Centre for the Interpretation of Cultural Relations between Cuba and Europe. After the project was completed, the Portal has continued to cover the activities held at the Palace, such as the visits made by the Director-General of UNESCO, the President of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Italy, and the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, as well as the launching of the book National Monuments of the Republic of Cuba.

Through the Portal of Culture ample information was provided on the projects for safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage (ICH), as well as on the capacity-building activities on this theme conducted in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dutch Caribbean, Ecuador and Panama by the corresponding UNESCO Offices, in collaboration with the respective institutions in Member States and territories. Issue no. 12 of Culture & Development magazine, dedicated to ICH, was also promoted and published in various pages of the Portal. Ample coverage has also been given to the activities and information received from the Regional Centre for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Latin America (CRESPIAL), a UNESCO category 2 centre with which the UNESCO Havana Office maintains close ties of cooperation, and which represents UNESCO at its Council. Some of the main actions disseminated include the renewal of the agreement between the Centre and the government of the Republic of Peru, the 15th Meeting of the Executive Committee (15COE), the result of the 2015 Call for photo and video projects to safeguard ICH, and the opening of the 2016 Call for Competitive Funds for Projects dedicated to safeguard ICH. The 10th Meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (10.COM) received ample coverage, as well as the new inscriptions on the Representative List of the intangible cultural heritage of Latin American and Caribbean countries: Argentina, Colombia-Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Nearly 200 news items on this theme, concerning the activities in the region, as well as messages and other information received from UNESCO Headquarters and field offices were disseminated through the Portal, as well as examples of best practices in safeguarding this heritage developed in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The actions developed within the framework of the project “Protection and management of underwater and coastal cultural heritage for job creation in Santiago de Cuba”, implemented by the UNESCO Regional Office for Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean, the National Cultural Heritage Council (CNPC) and local institutions with the financial support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), have been disseminated by the Portal. In this context, information was provided on SIMPOSUB 2015, the main theoretical and scientific event on the conservation of underwater cultural and natural heritage in Cuba, held under the auspices of UNESCO Havana, in whose framework the Underwater Archaeological Park linked to the Naval Battle of Santiago de Cuba (1898) was declared National Monument of the Republic of Cuba. The Portal also diffused the First International Symposium “Archaeological Heritage, Identity and Protection”, under the auspices of the UNESCO Office in Havana. Likewise, the Portal disseminated various actions aimed at protecting the underwater cultural heritage (UCH) in the region, such as the Capacity-building course on Underwater Archaeology and the Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage successfully held in Colombia; the joint efforts made by Panama and UNESCO to protect UCH in general and the wreck of the San José galleon in particular, as well as the capacity-building seminar “Conservation and Restoration Actions in Underwater Cultural Heritage” held in Uruguay. It was also promoted and published in the Portal the issue no. 13 of Culture & Development magazine, dedicated to underwater cultural heritage in the region.

The best practices developed in Latin America and the Caribbean to strengthen this fight were widely disseminated through the Portal of Culture of Latin America and the Caribbean, including the capacity-building actions conducted by Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela, as well as the restitution of cultural property obtained through illicit trafficking in Bolivia, Costa Rica and Peru. The Third Session of the Subsidiary Committee of the Meeting of States Parties to the 1970 Convention also received ample coverage.

During 2015, the Portal disseminated the actions developed by the Member States in the region on the occasion of the launching of the International Decade for People of African Descent and as part of the UNESCO project The Slave Route: Resistance, Liberty and Heritage, such as those undertaken by Barbados, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, San Kitts and Nevis and Venezuela. In addition, the database on institutions, documents and events on the theme of people of African Descent in LAC was updated and completed with a view to preparing a Portal webpage dedicated to the Decade, which includes approximately 340 new institutions, 150 documents and over 60 events.

UNESCO commemorated in 2015 the 10th anniversary of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Within this framework, and mindful of the impact of creative industries on national economies, as well as their worth as a means for the transmission of contents favouring dialogue and social cohesion, the section dedicated to the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in the Portal was remodelled, where information on the new project Capacity-building for the implementation of the 2005 Convention in Cuba, begun in 2015 by UNESCO Havana, was disseminated. Information on the important regional project Caribbean Cameras of Diversity, was also updated. Likewise, the Portal provided information on best practices to promote the actions of creative industries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including some of those developed in Argentina, Bahamas, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. The Portal’s Cultural Agenda contains the main events in the region relative to this theme, including film and music festivals, as well as book fairs. Likewise, the calls for the International Fund for Cultural Diversity, the International Fund for the Promotion of Culture and the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, among others, were widely disseminated. The Portal also diffused the activities that UNESCO Havana has continued to develop to strengthen the relations of cooperation it has established over the years with the Regional Centre for Book Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLALC), a UNESCO category 2 centre, in whose Council it represents the Organization.

The Portal continued to disseminate actions developed in the region within the framework of the campaign led by the U.N. Secretary-General “UNiTE to put an end to violence against women and girls”, among them: the participation of the Cuban expert Dr Isabel Moya at the International Development Cooperation Meeting on Gender and Media, as well as the First General Assembly of the Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMAG), with the collaboration of the UNESCO Regional Office for Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean, UN Women and the Office of the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations system in Cuba; the activities supported by the UNESCO Office in Havana as part of the Inter-Agency Group on Gender of the United Nations system in Cuba, as well as the dissemination of the Handbook on Mainstreaming the Gender Perspective in Common Programming at the Country Level, counselling on the staging of the play Violence à la Carte and the incorporation of a new group of Cuban intellectuals in the UNiTE Artists Network; the initiatives developed in the Dominican Republic, such as the launching of the HeforShe campaign and the 4th Film Cycle UNiTE for Non-Violence; those launched by the UNESCO Office in Montevideo, including the release in Argentina of the publication “Gender Equality. Heritage and Creativity”, its presentation in the framework of the 3rd International Forum on Women’s Rights and the event UNESCO: 70 Years in Pursuit of Gender Equality. Also disseminated were best practices such as the Outstanding Personality award granted in Peru to 24 women for their contribution to culture, and the messages of the Director-General of UNESCO on the occasion of International Women’s Day and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Coordinated and financed by the UNESCO Regional Office for Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean since 2002, at the request of the Member States of the region, the Portal of Culture of Latin America and the Caribbean today constitutes the Culture section of the website of the UNESCO Office in Havana. The site continues to provide ongoing coverage to UNESCO activities in the region within the framework of culture and to disseminate the Latin American and Caribbean cultural agenda, thereby facilitating the promotion of best practices and contributing to the dialogue between the Member States of Latin America and the Caribbean. The Portal also facilitates updated information on cultural institutions in the region and publishes news on UNESCO priorities and programmes and pertinent information on the cultural activities of the Member States. Since 2008, it publishes a thematic newsletter in Spanish and English that is distributed to more than 2,000 addressees, including governmental and non-governmental institutions, outstanding figures of Latin American and Caribbean culture, National Commissions, UNESCO Offices throughout the world, permanent delegations to UNESCO, specialists at UNESCO Headquarters, as well as subscribers. In 2015, issue no. 13, UNESCO Havana and Culture in 2014 was published. During 2015 more than 16,880 updates were included in the Portal, which entails a considerable increase in its database.

UNESCO Regional Office for Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean, Havana, Cuba:
Fernando Brugman, Olga Rufins, Elba Suárez, Junior González, Sonia Dunn, Elena Nápoles, Pablo Castilla and Julissa Ureña.

Contributions to this edition: UNESCO World Heritage Centre, UNESCO Offices in Brasilia (Brazil), Guatemala City (Guatemala), Kingston (Jamaica), Lima (Peru), Mexico City, (Mexico), Montevideo (Uruguay), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Quito (Ecuador), San José (Costa Rica) and Santiago de Chile; CRESPIAL and CERLALC.