The United Nations will consider later this year the new Sustainabable Development Goals to rep-lace the existing Millenium Development Goals. In this context there has been a lively debate on whether culture should be included in these goals. A strong statement of the case for inclusion is contained in the UNESCO Hangzhou Declaration on "Placing Culture at the Heart of Sustainable Development Policies" which resulted from an International Congress held in Hangzhou China on 15-17 May 2013.

The flavour of this statement may be seen in the following extract.

 " We affirm that culture should be considered as a fundamental enabler of sustainability, being a source of meaning and energy, a wellspring of creativity and innovation, and a resource to address challenges and find appropriate solutions. The extraordinary power of culture to foster and enable truly sustainable development is especially evident when a people-centred and place-based approach is integrated into development programs and peace-building initiatives"

The Declaration also asserts that "Development is shaped by culture and local context which ultimately also determine its outcomes. Consideration of culture should therefore be included as the fourth fundamental principle of the post-2015 UN development agenda in equal measure with human rights, equality and sustainability"

This argument may be seen as relevant to the place of culture in building sustainable learning cities as in the broader context of post-2015 development. Some aspects on the place of cultural policies and institutions in learning cities are being considered in the program of Rolling Workshops of the PASCAL Cultural Policies Network with reports from the Ostersund and Glasgow workshops already available on this site. Further workshops in this program are to follow in Catania and Pecs.

PASCAL welcomes blog comments on this site on the arguments of the UNESCO Hangzhou Declaration and aspects raised in the Ostersund and Glasgow workshop reports.