Abstract

International Cultural co-operation implies a delicate balance between intercultural dialogue on one hand, and the exportation of a Cultural model on the other. The Italian experience is characterised by a very high qualitative level of Cultural organisations, but in order for any action to be effective other conditions are required: until the projects were aimed more at the growth of external tourism rather than of local community's welfare their sustainability was extremely weak. After 2000 a radical shift has been recorded in the strategies underpinning international Cultural cooperation, with a new attention to Cultural, technological and managerial sustainability; presently, a further step is needed: the pursuit of sustainability must be widened from each single action to the local Cultural system as a whole. This requires a change in the traditional approach of recipient Countries, where lack of competence, strong bureaucracies, and insufficient capacity on the part of local actors still represents a problem.