Interamerican Meeting, 19-22 May

Open Air Discussion at Toluca meeting 2011.On 19-22 May 2011, 43 young experts, including members of the international U40 Network, met in Toluca, Mexico to share best practices on promoting the diversity of cultural expressions at the local level. They developed proposals on the diversity of cultural expressions for indigenous communities:

Proposals for local measures and programs to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions

The meeting was organised by the city of Toluca in cooperation with the International Federation of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity and the German Commission for UNESCO, among others. U40 Fellows participated alongside a group of young
Mexican professionals interested in the debate on cultural diversity and the UNESCO Convention on the
Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and its current implementation in the
Americas. The participants shared best practices to promote the diversity of cultural expressions at the local level and
discussed the weaknesses, strengths and challenges of these practices.

The meeting led to the creation of the regional U40 Network “U40 Mexico”, which primarily aims to give visibility to the 2005 UNESCO Convention in the 32 states that comprise the Mexican Federation.

This conference was one of the first projects funded by the International Fund for Cultural Diversity of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.