27 March 2009, Beijing – The United Nations System Resident Coordinator for China, Khalid Malik, together with His Excellencies Minister Yang Jing from the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC), Vice Minister Yang Jianqiang also from SEAC, Assistant Minister Qiu Hong from the Ministry of Commerce and the Spanish Ambassador Mr Carlos Blasco Villa launched today a joint UN-China programme ‘Culture and Development Partnership Framework’ at the CPPCC Hall in Beijing. The Programme is the first of its kind on culture and development in ethnic minority areas in China.

China has the world’s biggest ethnic minority population (106 million people), and this population is disproportionately poor, including 56% of China’s entire population still in extreme poverty. China owes much of its cultural wealth to the unique diversity of its 55 recognized ethnic minority groups, yet these minorities risk becoming increasingly vulnerable without the capacity and opportunities to access the benefits of China’s overall development.

China is strongly committed to lifting its minorities out of poverty, and is investing substantial domestic resources to this end. China has also committed itself to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 and the sustainable and harmonious Xiaokang Society by 2020. To do so, China is looking to the UN for a diverse, cross-sectoral range of international advice and expertise to enable it to move to an increasingly rights-based approach to development for minorities. The China Culture and Development Partnership Framework thus brings together the work of eight UN Agencies (UNICEF, UNFPA, UNESCO, UNDP, WHO, ILO, UNIDO, FAO) in close coordination and partnership with their government counterparts (e.g. State Ethnic Affairs Commission, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Ministry of Agriculture) and civil society. The Joint Programme will receive USD 6 million in funding support from the UN-Spain MDG Achievement Fund and USD 1 million in kind from the Chinese government over a period of three years.

The Programme has two aims: first to support China in designing and implementing policies that promote the rights of its ethnic minority groups in four of the provinces in which they are concentrated: Tibet, Qinghai, Yunnan and Guizhou. This will be achieved by building government capacity to undertake rights and culture-based development, and by building capacity of minority communities to participate. It will also enable ethnic minorities to further exercise their rights in three key areas: education, maternal and child health, and employment.

The second aim is to empower ethnic minority groups in the four provinces to better manage their cultural resources and thus to benefit from culture-based economic development. This will be achieved by building capacity to manage minority cultural resources, and by supporting the pro-poor development of culture-based tourism and the arts and crafts and creative industries sectors.

The Joint Programme is thus not only the first of its kind on culture and development in China but also a significant step forward in the involved UN agencies’ efforts to deliver as one unified and coherent UN system and at the same time to better align their work with national development goals and policies.

For more information please contact:
Joern Geisselmann
UN Programme Coordinator
Beijing, China
Tel.: +86 (0)10 6601 5057
Email: joern.geisselmann@undp.org