ADVANCING CULTURE BEYOND THE 2030 AGENDA: INTEGRATION OR A STANDALONE SDG?

<p dir="ltr"><i>Looking beyond the 2030 Agenda, a critical debate concerns whether culture should be recognized as a standalone Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). This paper presents a compelling argument against establishing a separate cultural SDG, advocated by many, cautioning that this could risk isolating culture from the broader sustainability agenda and undermining its crosscutting relevance. The paper goes beyond identifying effective pathways for embedding cultural sustainability across multiple existing goals.</i></p><p dir="ltr"><i>Recognizing culture not as an add-on pillar but a cross-cutting enabler of transformative change aligns with the original spirit of the 2030 Agenda and offers a more coherent and culturally grounded pathway for global sustainability. This would also avoid silo effects and reinforcing culture’s vital role as a transversal pillar of sustainable development.</i></p><p dir="ltr"><i>Using NVivo qualitative content analysis of United Nations SDG documents, implementation reports, and policy briefs, the study uncovers persistent gaps in how culture is addressed, as well as its implicit and explicit roles within various targets. The qualitative and quantitative findings were triangulated to identify conceptual gaps, structural omissions (such as the lack of cultural indicators), and emerging best practices in national reporting. Building on these insights, the outcome of this paper is the development of Crosscutting Policy Recommendations for the post-2030 agenda, along with a Proposed Cultural Reframing of the SDG framework. This includes specific strategies for embedding culture more systematically across existing goals, supported by practical indicator suggestions and pathways for implementation. These outputs aim to support a more coherent, inclusive, and culturally responsive global development architecture beyond 2030.</i></p>