Project Summary: ‘Culture as driver and an enabler for sustainable youth development’ will be a series of innovative capacity building and development actions that bring together cultural operators and disadvantaged young people. Context: Across the world the arts and cultural sector makes valuable and significant contributions to both social, economic and development needs as well as the wellbeing of society as a whole. The cultural and creative industries represent one of the most rapidly expanding sectors in the global economy, with a growth rate of 13.9 % in Africa, whilst also representing around 4% of total European GDP. Project partners recognize that culture is an essential component of young people’s development, that it represents a source of identity, innovation and creativity for individuals and groups and an important factor in social inclusion, poverty eradication and providing for sustainable economic growth.Where: Our programme will be an African and European partnership, engaging organizations from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Zambia and South Africa. What: The partners will collaborate and cooperate on capacity building training activities; arts engagement projects; cultural initiatives; periods of voluntary service and professional networking, that will have a measured and significant impact on their capabilities to operate and act within a globalized arts and cultural sector. This project will engage professional arts/cultural practitioners who will facilitate and support the delivery of training and creative work as well as pass on valuable skills and knowledge to the project participants. The stages within our project including:Stage 1: A training for cultural workers and young people;Stage 2: National arts and cultural initiatives;Stage 3: Hosting of European Voluntary Service;Stage 4: Transnational cultural exchanges (including capacity building programmes);Stage 5: A final dissemination conference and evaluation meeting.Why: The cultural sector is a growth cluster for economic activity with its potential for fighting poverty increasingly recognized. Our project will compliment the importance of culture in development and its contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Through building the skills, knowledge, experience and competences of our partners and project participant’s we enhance their capacity and capability to develop employment, create new products and test micro enterprises within the arts and cultural sector. Project objectives will be to: Explore compare and contrast models of best practice in arts engagement;Enable youth arts workers to better understand and develop employment opportunities within the cultural sector;Gain new competences and experiences of cultural sector business development; Deepen knowledge and skills in order to better organize international arts projects;Provide insight into employment development within the cultural sector.