In the context of the health crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic profoundly affecting the cultural sector at regional, national and global levels, UNESCO convened a Virtual Meeting of Ministers of Culture on 22 April 2020.
The meeting was attended by Heads of Governments, Ministers, Deputy Ministers and representatives of Ministry of Culture as well as cultural agencies from over 130 member states and observers of UNESCO. At the Meeting, participants discussed and evaluated the impact of the pandemic on cultural, arts and creative sectors, at the same time shared policies and responses of their countries to the effects of the pandemic on culture sector.
Prof. Dr. Tạ Quang Đông, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism representing Viet Nam participated in the Meeting. Speaking at the Meeting, Deputy Minister Tạ Quang Đông reported that since the early days of Covid-19 cases being reported in Wuhan, the Government of Viet Nam has focused on its best efforts to contain the pandemic, putting people’s lives a top priority and be willing to sacrifice economic benefits. As a result, it has been reported just 268 confirmed Covid-19 cases, with no deaths recorded to date.
However, Deputy Minister shared that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in Viet Nam has affected every organization, enterprise and individual operating in the area of culture and arts. Due to its limited resource, Viet Nam has not been able to provide a separate support package for the field of culture and arts; however, cultural and arts organizations, small and medium enterprises, creative start-ups and artists may receive support from the Government’s general packages in the forms of grants for unemployment, loss of income, income reduction, etc. and support through deferring tax payments and land-use fees.
Viet Nam highly appreciates UNESCO’s initiative to convene this Virtual Meeting of Ministers of Culture in response to COVID-19 pandemic, which demonstrates the sense of responsibility and sharing of leadership to navigate us in this global difficulty. Viet Nam proposed that UNESCO at first would conduct a comprehensive study on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on arts, cultural and creative sectors in the world and measures taken by Governments, corporates and donors to make a set of recommendations to all stakeholders. At the same time, Viet Nam called upon arts and cultural funds in general and emergency response funds to expand the beneficiaries to include artists and arts and cultural organizations from developing countries, giving priority to the North-South cooperation projects. In the coming time, it is necessary to further support and implement programs on capacity building for enterprises, organizations and individuals operating in the art and cultural field in developing countries specializing on management and governance, promoting application of ICT in cultural and art activities.
The Covid-19 pandemic has spread to over 200 countries and territories in the world, exerting a significant impact on every socio-economic aspect of each country, each community, changing people’s habits and lifestyles irrespective of development level, ethnicity, age, gender… Culture and arts is one of the many areas being heavily and instantly affected by the pandemic as all the cultural festivals have been cancelled, theaters, cinemas, libraries, galleries and public spaces have been closed. The practice of social distancing in a long period of time may affect the culture of human behaviour, at the same time develop new forms of expression in the post COVID era.
