Nuria Sanz, UNESCO Mexico Director, on Culture as a Tool for Social Change

Nuria Sanz, archaeologist and director of UNESCO Mexico, participated in a talk in Lecce on February 16 at Convitto Palmieri, organized by Cooperativa TAU and Fondazione Casa della carità di Lecce, in collaboration with the Polo biblio-museale della provincia di Lecce and Regione Puglia. The event explored whether it is still possible to build better worlds through participatory culture. Sanz discussed UNESCO's shift from focusing solely on heritage to using culture as a development platform over the past twenty years, emphasizing that culture must be understood as an exercise of citizenship and a source of social capital. She highlighted the need to address urbanization, emigration, and inequality by integrating culture into public policy. Sanz, now living in Rome due to her husband Viktor Elbing's appointment as German ambassador to Italy, is working with Regione Puglia's tourism and culture assessor Loredana Capone and Luigi De Luca to organize an international forum on public libraries at Fiera del Levante in Bari in early April.