At the 6th World Summit on Arts and Culture, hold in Chile from 13 to 16 January 2014, Ammar Kessab, fellow of the international U40 Network, spoke during the session “Social innovation and development: creative platforms” about how to optimize impact of a “development project” by culture.
“While other sectors have managed to developed rational arguments to explain how they are essential for development, the cultural sector suffers from the weakness of its arguments.”
He concluded that in time of international economical crisis, States and FT Partners are more than ever insensitive to the famous “cultural exception” argument. A cultural operator who disagree or is incapable to renew the argumentation on culture and development has to accept the actual situation, and also to be instrumentqlised for political purpose: “And this is the real danger for arts and culture”.
Ammar Kessab is a Governance & Public reforms expert at the African Development Bank, based in Tunis. Besides being a member of the U40 Network and one of the founding members of U40 Africa, he is a specialist in cultural management, collaborates with international and regional organizations in the field of financial management of cultural organizations, culture & development and cultural policies. He is member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Research in Public Management (AIRMAP), member of the Steering Committee of Culture Resource (Al Mawred – Cairo) and founding member of the Working Group on the Algerian Cultural Policy.