The actors responsible for international cultural cooperation are:
1) MAECI – Ministry for Foreign Affair and International Cooperation.
Law 125/2014 is aimed at modernizing Italian cooperation activities through the construction of four pillars: firstly, the “coherence of government policies” guaranteed by the Inter-ministerial Committee for Cooperation and Development (CICS); secondly, the institution of a Vice-Minister for Cooperation; thirdly, the definition of “an Italian cooperation system” that oversees the involvement and interaction of new players from the non-profit sector and the private one; and fourthly, the Italian Agency for Cooperation and Development (AICS), which began operating in 2016 and acts as a hub connecting national and local institutions, plus non-profit and profit-making organizations.
Cultural cooperation activities are carried out by MAECI’s main institutional actor: the Directorate Central for Cultural and Economic Promotion and Innovation, which includes Office VI – Multilateral cultural cooperation, archaeological missions; Office VII – Promotion of the Italian language and publications, internationalization of universities, fellowships; and Office VIII – Cultural promotion and the Italian Cultural Institutes.
Bilateral cooperation is also carried out by means of bilateral cultural agreements with other countries, dealing with a whole range of activities: exchanges of scholars, artists, performances, archaeological missions, and, in particular, film. Among the most recently established cultural bilateral agreements are those with Brazil, China, Iraq, Uruguay and Vietnam. Regarding multilateral cultural co-operation, the Directorate Central’s main role relates to UNESCO and ICCROM, where the focus of Italian activities has mostly been on heritage (see chapter 1.4.2).
The main problem of MAECI’s several administrative units in charge of the promotion of Italian culture abroad have to face deals with the progressive decrease in their already inadequate financial resources. Financial data only dealing with its cultural activities are not made available by the Ministry and this prevents reliable comparisons with other countries on state expenditure for international cultural cooperation.
2) MiC – Ministry of Culture.
Its strengthened international role should be also ascribed to the growing relevance in cultural cooperation matters of the Council of the Cultural Ministers of the Union, as well as to the enhancement of Italy’s leadership in advising and technically and financially supporting the developing countries’ heritage policies. MiC has no specific DG in charge of foreign relations, which are shared instead among the cabinet’s Diplomatic Advisor and a Unit for International Relations supervised by the Secretary General, which includes Service II – UNESCO Office and Service III – International Relations.
In 2015 the International School of Cultural Heritage (“Fondazione Scuola dei beni e delle attività culturali”) was established (Law 22 February 2015 n. 11): it is a Foundation aimed at providing training, research and advanced studies as part of the mission of MiC, which is its founding partner. Gathering Italian and foreign professionals involved in managing cultural assets, the International School of Cultural Heritage programme is an initiative of professional development through the sharing of knowledge, experiences, methods, and tools in a sort of permanent workshop. Participants are selected by the government of the foreign countries. Each edition of the programme circumscribes a geographical area of origin of participants, and a thematic field among the wide sphere of cultural heritage. In the 2019-2020 edition, participants were invited from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, Turkey and Ethiopia as an associated country.
In 2019 the Directorate General for Education and Research was set up within the MIC (DPCM 2 December 2019 n. 169): it has the aim of promoting knowledge of cultural heritage and its social and civic functions at local, national and international level. It promotes a wider participation in European and international funded projects in co-operation with public and private European and international organisations. It cooperates with the Italian Cultural Institutes and it has coordinated the international project “Training Projects”, aimed at providing foreign countries with a training offer on different aspects of cultural heritage management, research and preservation. It also coordinates the pilot project co-funded by MAECI and addressed to Caribbean countries.
In 2016 the Ministry of Culture Franceschini announced the creation of a G7 for Culture. In March 2017 the Ministers of Culture of the seven countries met in Florence for the first G7 of culture to discuss the theme of “culture as an instrument of dialogue between peoples”.
3) Regional and local level
Most of the main cities have become important actors for international cultural exchanges, often in the framework of “twinning cities” bilateral agreements. Moreover, Creative Europe and other EU cultural programmes – along with programmes by the CoE – have acted as effective catalysts for regional and local international cultural cooperation.
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