Our creative diversity
		Two views of development
		Culture and development
		The fragmented global culture

Unless economic development has a cultural basis it can never lead to truly lasting development. Culture is not something 'to be taken into consideration'. It is fundamental to development. While in practice culture may often have led to a lack of understanding, it is also the lifeblood of creativity. This is the conclusion reached by the Commission for Culture and Development in its report 'Our Creative Diversity'. The Commission, chaired by the former secretary general of the United Nations, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, was established by UNESCO and the UN in 1993 - halfway through the world decade for cultural development. The Commission's brief was to chart the relationship between culture and development and to publicize and discuss the results throughout the world.

A great deal of confusion arises in both academic and political discourse when culture in the humanistic sense is not distinguished from "culture" in its anthropological senses, notably culture as the total and distinctive way of life of a people or society. From the latter point of view it is meaningless to talk of "the relation between culture and the economy," since the economy is part of a people's culture... Indeed the ambiguities in this phrase pose the great ideological issue confronted by the Commission: is "culture" an aspect or a means of "development," the latter understood as material progress; or is "culture" the end and aim of "development," the latter understood as the flourishing of human existence in its several forms and as a whole?

Marshall Sahlins

		Our creative diversity
		Two views of development
		Culture and development
		The fragmented global culture