Ibero-American Forum Meets at Rio2C to Set Creative Policy
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- The Ibero-American Forum of Deputy Ministers of Culture holds its sixth meeting inside Rio2C with representatives from 17 member countries — Bolivia, Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay — marking the first time the gathering has coincided with the creativity forum.
- Márcio Tavares, Brazil's Ministry of Culture executive secretary, will preside the meeting because Brazil currently holds the Forum's temporary presidency, which was founded in 2024 by the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI).
- OEI and Fundação Itaú — the foundation of one of Brazil's largest private banks — will sign a cooperation agreement during the meeting focused on building data and indicators to measure the creative industries' contribution to sustainable development.
- Forum members will negotiate a renewal of the Ibero-American Cultural Charter, originally signed in 2006, with all 17 countries due to approve the new version in November.
- Brazil's Escola Solano Trindade de Cultura e Economia Criativa, the Ministry of Culture's virtual school, will present Portuguese and Spanish-language courses to be offered to all Forum member countries.
- Rio2C founder Rafael Lazarini stressed the Forum is built around vice ministers and executive secretaries — officials who "roll up their sleeves and get the work done" — rather than political ministers, calling it "a sector-focused" rather than political meeting.
Why it matters: Seventeen Ibero-American nations are synchronizing the data infrastructure and policy framework that determine how the creative economy gets measured and funded across the region. The November Cultural Charter approval deadline and the OEI-Fundação Itaú agreement to build creative-industries indicators give the Rio2C gathering concrete deliverables rather than a talking shop — a rare alignment of public policy and private financing around shared creative-economy metrics for Latin America, Spain, and Portugal.
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