Value and evaluation in international cultural cooperationfocus on the Euroarab region

Resumen

International cultural cooperation is a multi-layer and multi-stakeholders and actors arena, which requires insightful understanding of governance systems, the geopolitical environment and the concerns and needs of artists and cultural operators in each setting. In the contemporary zeitgeist of evaluation and the growing arena of international cultural cooperation, the evaluation of international cultural cooperation programmes has been not sufficiently explored. To shed light into the research subject, the EuroArab region has been selected as a focus area since it is a geography of intense cultural exchange activity, of growing interest from funding bodies and institutions and a strategic target of EU external relations. In this research, the state of affairs, the key stakeholders, actors and the programmes in international cultural cooperation in the EuroArab region are traced, especially in the framework of the environment that has been marked by the Arab Spring and the explicit inclusion of culture in the EU’s external relations. Following the analysis of the context, the research searches to understand how international cultural cooperation programmes are evaluated and how value/ impact is perceived and produced by investigating deeper into four selected case studies and voicing the concerns and opinions of people involved in the evaluation practice and of selected experts. The aim of this research is to respond to the call for more robust evidence around the value and the evaluation practice of international cooperation programmes and to propose recommendations for its improvement. Key words: international cultural cooperation, programme evaluation, value, EuroArab region