A/77/290 Goal campaign envisioning the recognition of culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development. 68 V. Importance of the cultural sector in sustainable development 53. The positive effects of the cultural sector on sustainable development are often focused on significant returns on investment and the cultural sector as a driver of growth. 54. However, the cultural sector’s contribution to sustainable development goes fa r beyond this economic dimension. For example, museums and cultural heritage sites, which operate internationally, nationally and/or locally, are important assets for localized development, inspire creativity and offer opportunities to share culturally diverse practices that support social cohesion, civic engagement and more widespread well-being. 69 Large national public institutions can influence policy development, while networks of local museums can be directly attentive to community needs and knowledge. Cultural organizations can lead the way to support sustainable futures in their own practices, through information-sharing, awareness-raising and supporting communities to use culture as a driver for sustainable change. 55. Creative projects that address the challenges of development are often framed in the language of environmental and social justice. They often utilize decolonization processes, recognizing the complexities of traditional development paradigms rooted in colonialism. The “theatre for development” approach, for example, includes the “theatre of the oppressed”, a type of popular theatre by and for the people. 70 56. Many cultural organizations and artists counter powerful development narratives to shift paradigms. They can support marginalized communities to have a voice by documenting environmental rights abuses, 71 abuses related to resource misuse 72 or their communities’ own development. 73 57. The cultural sector is full of creative thinkers who can help to imagine new modes of development and disseminate marginalized knowledge to new audiences. Cultural institutions showcase indigenous methods of sustainable development, forging partnerships with grass-roots organizations. 74 Grass-roots cultural organizations and individual cultural entrepreneurs have a key role to play in empowering local communities by adopting creative methodologies that draw from local cultural contexts to enable disadvantaged groups to gain greater agency in their own lives. 75 __________________ 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 22-12659 Contributions of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, pp.1 and 6, and the United Cities and Local Governments Culture Committee, p. 3. See also Henry McGhie, Museums and the Sustainable Development Goals: A Ho w-To Guide for Museums, Galleries, the Cultural Sector and Their Partners (Curating Tomorrow, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 2019). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and International Council of Museums, Culture and Local Development: Maximising the Impact (n.p., 2019), p. 4. Augusto Boal, quoted in Pearly Wong and John Clammer, “Performance and development: th eatre for social change” in John Clammer and Ananta Kumar Giri, eds., The Aesthetics of Development: Art, Culture and Social Transformation (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2017), p. 293. See, for example, information on projects by INTERPRT. Available at www.interprt.org. See, for example, the work of Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves as discussed in T.J. Demos, “Return of a lake: contemporary art and political ecology in Mexico”, Rufián Revista, vol. 17 (2014). See, for example, Isuma TV, a collective of Inuit-owned film-makers and media organizations in Igloolik, in Nunavut, Canada. Available at www.isuma.tv/. See, for example, https://australian.museum/learn/climate-change/climate-solutions/culturalburning/. For example, a project entitled “Binding lives”, locally led by Nuku Studio and the Bristle Ghana Foundation, works creatively with pregnant teenagers in Ghana in contexts where women are leaders of local cash-based economies. 15/24