The Fundación Tres Culturas has today joined the select and coveted club of institutions worldwide that are classified and recognised by UNESCO as Category 2 Centres.
This historic decision was approved by the members meeting in Samarkand on the occasion of the 43rd General Conference of UNESCO, composed of 194 Member States and 12 Associate Members.
For Miquel Iceta, Spain's permanent delegate ambassador to UNESCO, the Fundación Tres Culturas has thus become the third institution in Spain and the first in Andalusia to obtain this distinction, which crowns 26 years of commitment and mobilisation in the service of dialogue between all our cultures, respect for all our diversities and the encounter between all our spiritualities.
Created in 1999 at the joint initiative of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Junta de Andalucía, the Foundation embodies a pioneering vision: to make cultural diversity a lever of respect nourished by the values, teachings and legacy of the Andalusian and Moroccan civilisations.
At a historic moment marked by denial and identity withdrawal, the Three Cultures Foundation reminds us that diversity is a richness and that dialogue between our respective civilisations constitutes a horizon of hope, as underlined by the Foundation's co-presidents, André Azoulay, advisor to His Majesty the King of Morocco, and Patricia del Pozo, Minister of Culture and Sport of the Andalusian Regional Government.
UNESCO Category 2 Centres function as international or regional poles of expertise and cooperation, contributing, through training, research, capacity building and knowledge sharing, to the achievement of UNESCO's objectives in the fields of culture, education and the human sciences.
By joining this global network, the Three Cultures Foundation will be actively involved in the protection of cultural heritage, the promotion of diversity and the facilitation of intercultural and inter-religious dialogue.
This designation, the fruit of a long process carried out with the support of the Government of Spain, the Kingdom of Morocco and the Andalusian Regional Government, is testimony to what these three partners have been able to build together: a common space of cooperation, respect and social modernity nourished by the richness of all our diversities. It marks a turning point in the Foundation's trajectory and reaffirms the legitimacy of its role as an international reference for Mediterranean dialogue.
"This success is not only a recognition of the past, but charts the way to a shared future. Together, Spain, Morocco and Andalusia embody the best that our cultures have to offer the world: peace, the legitimacy of otherness and the recognition of the dignity of all our diversities," declared Patricia del Pozo, Minister of Culture and Sport of the Andalusian Regional Government, and André Azoulay, Advisor to His Majesty the King of Morocco, co-presidents of the Three Cultures of the Mediterranean Foundation.