UN-backed conference opens on enhancing dialogue among cultures

Dialogue among cultures has been a dream of people committed to multilateralism, and a United Nations-backed conference in Morocco, which starts today, aims to launch an initiative to promote such a dialogue through institutions promoting heritage preservation and cross-cultural education and communications.

With the theme "Fostering Dialogue among Cultures and Civilizations through Concrete and Sustained Initiatives," some 100 experts have gathered in Rabat from Africa, Europe and the United States to prepare an action programme that will make dialogue among cultures a reality, the UN Education, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said.

One workshop will look at reforming school and university curricula, revising textbooks in certain subjects, writing teachers' guides and prototype programmes and teaching human rights and multicultural education, it said.

Another will review the notion of ethics and responsibility in science, the establishment of regional cooperation mechanisms and the promotion of scientific collaboration, UNESCO said.

In others, the experts will focus on national museums, arts festivals, training journalists and thinking of ways to fight against harmful stereotypes.

A concert, Dialogue among Melodies, "bringing together traditional instruments from different cultures" was to entertain experts on the first evening.

The conference is jointly organized by UNESCO, the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO), the Danish Centre for Culture and Development (DCCD) and the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures from Alexandria, Egypt.