First Workshop of Interagency Group on Culture Strategy Held
On July 31st, the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia hosted the first workshop of the Interagency Group on Georgian Cultural Strategy 2025. During the working meeting the first two phases of the report of cultural strategy were presented together with the structure project of the cultural strategy document. The meeting was opened by the Minister of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia, Mikheil Giorgadze and attended by the EU Ambassador to Georgia Janos Herman, international expert Ragnar Siil, and other public figures. At the meeting the participants discussed the economic potential of culture, priorities developed by the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia, the problems emerging in the cultural field throughout Georgia, and cooperation plans with various government agencies.
The Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia is working on Culture 2025 at the initiative of the Prime Minister of Georgia, the EU delegation and the EU Eastern Partnership Culture Program. The Georgian government will approve the document at the end of 2015 for which the active work of interagency groups during the process is very important.
Minister Giorgadze underlined the importance of a long term strategy.
“Our country is obliged to develop a long-term cultural strategy. This country with the oldest, most exceptional and diverse culture can’t not have a coherent vision of how to develop this sector,” Minister Giorgadze noted.
EU Ambassador to Georgia Janos Herman expressed his hope that the Cultural Strategy will impact positively on Georgia’s further development.
“We appreciate that the Culture Ministry undertook this task. We think that the Cultural Strategy was worked out in an inclusive, comprehensive manner through the government and across all the state holders’ promises that it will become an important tool,” stated Ambassador Herman.
During the Cultural Strategy working process two documents will be developed:
1) Long-term Culture Strategy until 2025
2) Culture Strategy action plan for the years 2016-2017
Both documents have already been approved by the Georgian government.
Meri Taliashvili