What has happened so far? Where are we standing now?
“The ICCIRA has been founded by Panayiotis Neufelt who has identified at an early stage around 2013/14, the need for strengthening the voices and the concerns of the creative people because of trading, cultural, legislative and geopolitically motivated changes, which occurred globally.” – Excerpt of a presentation-
Although ICCIRA was actually founded in 2014, everything indicated that it was too early to be widely presented, as the regulators had to solve issues mainly related to political decision making.
In November 2019, 120 Ministers of Culture requested from their governments, through UNESCO, to strengthen the Cultural Policy System and its legal regulatory framework by fully globalising it, as the current regulatory framework it is not implemented properly and is not fully recognised within the existing and the enhanced bilateral trading agreements and the enhanced bilateral trading agreements.
I have made a similar proposal in 2014 on the side of the at the UNESCO Summit in Florence, during my interventions and again in 2015 to UNESCO via the UN . It was a clear response, supported by the organisations I lead.
Back then I had also suggested the a model regarding the legal framework for culture which is similar to a model used by the Civil Aviation Authority.
The Aviation regulatory framework has also borrowed its own model from the International Law of the Seas.
The ICCIRA is not yet a Member of UNESCO and ICCIRA is not yet a Partner of UNESCO. ICCIRA, will eventually* and inevitably apply to become a prominent Partner for UNESCO.
*Clarification: We need first to present the new members of the Board of Directors, the Executive, Country, Discipline Boards, its Administrative teams, its Marketing and Financial Department, etc.
Regarding our developments: The highest levels of Directors in UNESCO have been informed by the ICCIRA’s temporary management team.
This has happened through a press release penetration which occurred just right after the November UNESCO meeting, in December 2019 and in January 2020.
160 Ministries of Culture (possibly more than that) worldwide have been also informed in advance with regards to the ICCIRA’S developments.
Over 4.000 cultural organisations have been updated regularly in relation to our call.
Over 39.000 targeted cultural actors, individuals from all over the world have been invited to participate to this initiative via email.
Our open call, directly or indirectly, has been estimated to have reached over 300.000 people connected to the Arts, Cultural and Creative ecologies.
Cultural actors from 160 countries have taken part in this call.
Over 260 cultural actors have been shortlisted.
We have selected 158 cultural actors to cover various vacancies in the organisation.
We expect to welcome 450 delegates as soon as we complete the organisational tasks.
I would like to thank you all for your trust and participation.
Panayiotis Neufelt
Chairman
ICCIRA