During the UNGA High-Level Interactive Dialogue on Culture and Sustainable Development, titled "Connecting cultures in the digital era", Cuba's Chargé d'Affaires, a.i. to the United Nations, Ambassador Yuri Ariel Gala López, reaffirmed the country's commitment to protecting culture and promoting cultural diversity as drivers of sustainable development, social inclusion, and efforts to eradicate poverty and reduce inequalities.
The Cuban diplomat stressed that digital tools have enabled cultural and creative industries to find new forms of expression, production, and dissemination, contributing to economic diversification and building bridges between peoples and their cultures. However, Gala López warned that persistent digital divides threaten to reproduce inequalities in access to knowledge, creation, and cultural participation.
Ambassador Gala López reiterated Cuba's call for: strengthened international cooperation that prioritizes the technological sovereignty of the global South; the protection of cultural identities against the homogenization imposed by large media conglomerates; the use of information and communications technologies as an educational tool to disseminate the art, history, culture and languages of our peoples as a means to strengthen mutual respect and recognition; the rejection of the use of technologies for ideological and cultural manipulation that seek to undermine the self-determination of peoples.
He stressed that, despite the severe limitations imposed by the U.S. government blockade, Cuba has developed a national strategy for the informatization of society that seeks to promote culture and encourage digital spaces for creativity and diversity.
The Cuban representative concluded by urging a digital transformation “where each culture finds its place and voice, where the global does not deny the local and where technology serves human beings and does not dehumanize them”.
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations