A/78/213 priorities. The contribution of this and similar initiatives 59 to the achievement of development goes far beyond the creation of economic wealth that could be measured by the salary of the artists and facilitators involved. Avenues need to be found for such relevant initiatives to be included and accounted for in the international development apparatus. D. International organizations fail to respect cultural rights 59. Since cultural rights are not explicitly addressed nor fully understood, they are very often disregarded in the work of international development and trade organizations. 60. The one-size-fits-all economic policies of IMF hinder the enjoyment of the rights of communities to implement their philosophies and priorities and often have deep and lasting adverse effects on cultural rights and on the levels of inequality in the populations of debtor countries. The liberalization policies of IMF have often required that borrowers privatize the ownership of social service industries. In sub-Saharan Africa, these policies resulted in increased tuition fees for schools, with no exemption for poor or vulnerable populations, often leadin g to the exclusion of women and girls. 60 The IMF Strategy Toward Mainstreaming Gender (2022) acknowledges widening gender disparities, and that allowing communities to lead processes could have avoided such effects. 61 In addition, the widespread effects of IMF conditionality policies disproportionately fall on the cultural sector, which is often considered a luxury. When investments in institutions are reduced, cultural institutions are usually the first to be cut. 62 61. In some countries, special economic zones have been promoted by the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the World Bank as effective mechanisms for facilitating economic growth, despite violations of the cultural rights of concerned populations. 63 It is reported that some development projects in China that claimed to boost tourism and local cultural resources have been conducted without consultation with, the free, prior and informed consent of, or the sharing of the benefits with the populations concerned, resulting in a commodification of local heritage and a misuse of UNESCO heritage instruments. 64 62. The World Bank has acknowledged negative impacts on cultural rights in several projects. For example, a hydroelectrical project fin anced by the World Bank that severely affected the cultural identity and heritage of the community members living in Chamoli District, Uttarakhand, in India, has shown the importance of __________________ 59 60 61 62 63 64 23-14310 Contributions from the Dominican Republic; International Organization for Migration; Cox’s Bazar (Bangladesh); and International Teaching Artist Collaborative. See Fatma Osman Ibnouf, “Impact of the World Bank and IMF polici es on rural women’s human rights in Sub-Saharan Africa”, Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity, No. 28 (2008), p. 32. IMF, Strategy Toward Mainstreaming Gender, p. 6. See the contribution of Observatorio Nacional de Derechos Humanos (Bolivaria n Republic of Venezuela). See the contribution of Natural Justice and Earthlife Africa (2022). See also Lara Domínguez and Colin Luoma, “Decolonising conservation policy: how colonial land and conservation ideologies persist and perpetuate Indigenous injustices at the expense of the environment”, Land, vol. 9, no. 3 (2020), p. 65. See the contribution of the International campaign for Tibet. See also Uyghur Human Rights project, available at https://uhrp.org/report/the-complicity-of-heritage-cultural-heritage-andgenocide-in-the-uyghur-region/. 17/24