World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development is observed on 21 May to promote culture and highlight the significance of its diversity as an agent of inclusion and positive change.
The day celebrates the richness of the world’s cultures and the essential role of intercultural dialogue for achieving peace and sustainable development.
The day aims to provide an opportunity to celebrate culture’s manifold forms, creative industries, diversity of cultural expressions, and to reflect on how these contribute to the dialogue, mutual understanding, and the social, environmental, and economic vectors of sustainable development.
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) first declared the observation of World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development in 2002.
The move followed UNESCO’s adoption of the 2001 Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity which recognized the need to enhance the potential of culture as a means of achieving prosperity, sustainable development, and global peaceful coexistence.
