In medias res: On the Omission of Culture as a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and its impact in El Salvador

Abstract

The challenge of defining culture, in its various dimensions, complicates the formulation of public policies, as the lack of consensus around this issue makes it difficult to define indicators to measure its impact on sustainable development. Although it is a source of creativity and contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), culture is dynamic and diverse, which makes its quantitative measurement problematic. Prior to this, the very lack of a cultural policy and of tools to visualize the composition and dimension of the cultural sector hinders the measurement and valorization of cultural assets. On the other hand, from the point of view of state governance, public policies should ideally be aligned with the SDGs. However, in the Salvadoran context, efforts to promote culture, creative industries or the creative economy often lack continuity and systematization, thus limiting sustainable and inclusive development.