In order to be effective, development processes to reduce poverty must understand culture, or take culture into account. The World Bank's Culture-Poverty Learning & Research program has begun such work.
Culture and Development [get by e-mail] December 13, 2000 Why should culture interest the Bank at all? Isn't it plausible to presume that the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development...
Why should culture interest the Bank at all? Isn't it plausible to presume that the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development is busy reconstructing and developing?These are not, in fact, hard questions to answer, for cultural issues can be critically important for development.
This book is motivated by two preoccupations. The first is that cultural factors matter for development, and have been either insufficiently included or completely ignored in the mainstream discourse. The second concerns inadequacies over some of the ways in which culture has been included -- as a primordial trap, a mystical haze, or a source of hegemonic power -- rather than a commonplace, malleable fact of life that matters as much as economics or politics to the process of development.
The research will try to determine whether it is feasible and sustainable to stimulate the use of
traditional technologies and architecture in modern construction, in order to retain the cultural identity and “sense of place”. This question will be examined within a common cultural context,in three situations representing different stages of openness to external influences: Bhutan (closed), Bhaktapur (restricted/guided), and Ladakh, India (open). The intention is to scale up from the innovations and research, in city development strategies in India, as well as in the ten towns under the World Bank-assisted Bhutan Urban Development Project.
The purpose of this briefing is to report on specific progress in work supported by Dutch funding, and the timetable of deliverables. Twelve excellent research and pilot projects are now funded and underway.
