UNESCO Brings Global Perspective to Jamaica’s Parliamentary Debate on Culture
UNESCO Regional Director and Representative for the Caribbean Eric Falt today presented UNESCO’s perspective on Jamaica’s Green Paper for the National Policy for Culture, Entertainment and the Creative Economy 2025–2035 to the Joint Select Committee of the Houses of Parliament.
The formal meeting, chaired by the Honourable Olivia Grange, Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, provided a rare opportunity for UNESCO to contribute directly to parliamentary consideration of Jamaica’s national cultural policy. The hour-long encounter was broadcast live on Jamaica’s national public television, bringing the discussion to a wider national audience.
During his presentation, Mr. Falt highlighted the significance of the Green Paper in placing culture, entertainment and the creative economy within a broader national development framework, connecting them with education, tourism, youth, employment, technology, intellectual property and Jamaica’s international identity.
“Jamaica is an extraordinary cultural power,” Falt said, pointing to the worldwide influence of its music, as well as Jamaican language, fashion, literature and sport. He introduced the concept of “mondialization” to describe how a culture rooted in a particular place, in this case Jamaica, can become globally consequential.
The presentation focused on how Jamaica can build further on this global cultural influence and translate it into sustainable national value. Mr. Falt highlighted the importance of strengthening financing, skills, infrastructure, market access, intellectual property and institutional coordination, while ensuring that Jamaican creators and communities retain a greater share of the value generated by their cultural expressions.
He also drew attention to artificial intelligence as a fast-emerging issue for Jamaica’s cultural and creative sectors. Among the questions requiring attention are the use of Jamaican cultural material to train AI systems, compensation and rights for creators, protection of cultural expressions and knowledge, and the ability of Jamaican creators to participate in creating and capturing value from new technologies.
The Regional Director emphasized that the next challenge is implementation. “Jamaica does not need to convince the world that it is culturally important. The world already knows,” he said.
“What Jamaica now has the opportunity to do is to build a system around that extraordinary cultural asset,” he added, including a system in which heritage remains alive, young people see culture as an opportunity, creators retain more ownership of the value they generate, and technology and innovation strengthen rather than undermine cultural expression.
The engagement further strengthened UNESCO’s support for Jamaica as the country advances its national policy on culture, entertainment and the creative economy. UNESCO’s cooperation with Jamaica spans World Heritage, intangible cultural heritage, the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, documentary heritage, biodiversity and biosphere reserves.
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