Culture, Cities and Sustainable Development
22 April 2021. 14h00 - 16h00 (SAST)
Biographies of participants
Jordi Pascual
Jordi Pascual is the coordinator of the Committee on culture of the world organisation of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). The work of the Committee is based on Culture 21 Actions, the most complete toolkit on culture in sustainable cities. The Committee organises a global award as well as a biennial Summit, manages a unique database of good practices and promotes a range of learning programmes on capacity-building and connectivity of cities. As coordinator of the Committee, he is involved in the global campaign #culture2030goal that advocates for the role of cultural factors and actors in the UN Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Avril Joffe
Avril is a development economist and head of the Cultural Policy and Management Department, at the Wits School of Arts. Avril’s areas of focus are cultural policy design, implementation and evaluation; value, mapping and assessment of the cultural economy for evidence-based policy making; strategic planning for the arts; cultural entrepreneurship; and, foregrounding arts and culture in urban and city development. She has notably developed generic cultural policy frameworks and toolkits on fundraising for the arts in Africa and was recently part of the Ministerial-appointed review panel to rewrite South Africa’s cultural policy. She designed and facilitated training programmes. Further she has worked as a specialist researcher, policy analyst, evaluator and consultant on behalf of major internal bodies, and across Africa. She serves on the UNESCO expert facility on cultural policy and governance and on the International Advisory Committee for the UK's Cultural and Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Council.
Zayd Minty
Zayd is a cultural management professional and researcher. He has worked, primarily in South Africa: on local cultural governance initiatives; in post-apartheid museums, community arts centres, festivals and networks; and with public and contemporary arts projects. He has a special interest in understanding how culture could be better mobilised at localised levels to enable more sustainable, integrated and just cities in the global South. He is currently working on his doctorate looking at the Newtown Cultural Precinct and its implications for cultural governance, through the African Centre for Cities. He has been running Creative City South since 2017 – which serves as a platform for documenting and popularising urban cultural policies and practises for sustainable cities in the global South. He is a research associate at the University of Witwatersrand at the Cultural Policy and Management Department of the School of Arts.
rike Sitas
Straddling the academic world of urban studies and creative practice, Rike Sitas is fascinated by the intersection of art, culture and heritage in urban life, and in particular the role these can play in realising more just and sustainable cities. Rike is based at the African Centre for Cities (UCT) and is a fellow at the Centre for Humanities Research (UWC). A large part of her interest involves unpacking the notions of public space and public life in cities, particularly in the global South, paying attention to re-thinking culture-based development and cultural policy in African cities.
Steven Sack
Steven Sack is an ex government official, curator and artist. Steven was the previous Director for Arts, Culture and Heritage in the municipality of Johannesburg. He has also served as Director for Cultural Industries in the then national Department of Arts and Culture, CEO at the Origins Centre at Wits and Director at FUNDA Arts Centre. He is currently an independent consultant in the area of arts, museums and cultural policy.
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