Reflections on the links between culture and development have been particularly dynamic and innovative in Latin America. The Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies in Latin America (Bogotá, 1978) recognized that “the diversity of peoples should be considered a factor of balance, rather than division.” Ever since that statement, the region’s cultural policies have tended to integrate cultural diversity and national identity. The World Conference on Cultural Policies (Mexico City, 1982) made a keystone contribution to subsequent action taken nationally and internationally, as its final report contained a paragraph on the cultural dimension of development and it defined culture, for the first time ever, as “the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a society or social group. It includes not only the arts and letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions and beliefs”. In this context, the common targets of the Joint Programmes implemented in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Uruguay have been designed to reduce social inequalities and strengthen creative industries, thereby illustrating that in Latin America culture is an unequivocal motor of development.
