Implementation of Culture for Development Indicators - CDIS project
The project ‘’Culture for Development Indicators-CDIS has as a goal to show the role which the culture has as supporter and initiator of sustainable development. With the help of innovative methodology, by this means of public advocacy and policies through the facts and data multidimensional relationship between culture and development is analyzed. Realization of this UNESCO project has as a goal the creation of 22 indicators in 7 social dimensions, which measure the impact of culture on development of the country, giving the analysis and data for cultural and development policies improvement as well as promotion of stronger integration of culture in national developing strategies.
Ministry of Culture and National commission for UNESCO in Montenegro, during 2015 have conducted UNESCO international project CDIS under the patronage of that international organization. Conducting of CDIS in Montenegro has started at the beginning of 2015, and data gathering process and analysis drafting was finished in April the same year, after which it was worked on further analysis in accordance with UNESCO CDIS Methodology. By research od 22 CDIS Indicators through this project policies of seven key fields were analyzed: Economics; Education; Governing; Social Participation; Gender equality; Communication and Cultural heritage. After the preparatory phase during which Montenegrin CDIS team made acquaintance with CDIS Methodology and had identified data sources, the implementation process was initiated officially at the workshop on February the 23rd 2015. The workshop gathered participants from state institutions, Universities, civil society and media which discussed about potential of the project in the context of Montenegro, and identified additional data sources and established working partnerships. The participants expressed great interest in innovative methods of CDIS and have recognized the potential of it as the means for providing information for institutional dialogue and public advocacy of involvement of culture in developing strategies. Implementation has been completed on April the 15th 2015 when the beginning results of Montenegro for CDIS indicators were presented at closing workshop in Podgorica.
In accordance with the vision of CDIS project and experiences of countries in which it was realized, the CDIS implementation in Montenegro has concrete expected results. At national level, new facts and data were obtained, as well as their analysis and contextualization, should help in rising awareness on importance of culture, strengthening cultural and developing agenda, providing information for creation policies of development and strategies, strengthening national statistics and monitoring system, taking steps toward EU integrations and achievement European standards in statistics, as well as improvement of inter-institutional dialogue and cooperation.
The CDIS project has been realized according to agreement on donation with UNESCO from December of 2014, which for this purpose allocated 10.000 dollars.
Evaluation of this measure was initiated at second workshop. In the key document that resulted from the project, Analytical brief, certain impacts were stated as well as additional values which this project possesses in Montenegro: raising awareness on developing potential of culture among active participants in the cultural sector and beyond it; the involvement of culture in national development agenda is being strengthened; shortcomings in statistics and monitoring system were discovered, pointing to the way for improvement and strengthening of such systems; CDIS has helped also in discovering the possibility of cooperation in the field of culture and development among involved parties. CDIS indicators for Montenegro contribute to the outcomes of CDIS at international level; Unique data are obtained along with indicators of other countries, in international database; by these data and their analysis, public advocacy and promotion of culture in developing agenda is strengthened by using facts and data, and comparative understanding of impact of culture on development is alleviated and the help is given in stimulating of involvement of cultural indicators in developing instruments and measures which are widely used.
Besides, the impact and application of the results of this measure, that is, the project, they were presented at regional conference of Countries of South East Europe in which CDIS project has been initiated or is in the preparation, in April of 2016 in Belgrade, Serbia. It was noted that, among other things, the results and suggestions from CDIS were used during creation of Program for Development of Culture of Montenegro 2016-2020.