“The people-to-people and cultural dimension in the High North strategy will help strengthen network cooperation in the Barents Region”, a press release from the government reads.
The increased cultural funding will benefit the BarentsKult programme, an initiative by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat in Kirkenes, as well as people-to-people cooperation and indigenous people cooperation.
A total of five million NOK will be earmarked the cultural investments in the High North.
The government also confirms that it will “stimulate the international media’s interest in the High North” and that it to an increasing extent will look towards the use of “new information channels”.
It is now also clear that the Samovar Theater in Kirkenes, an institution working extensively across the Norwegian-Russian border, will for the first time get budget money of 750 000 NOK. Also the Kirkenes-based “Pikene på Broen” contemporary art organisation will get money (500,000 NOK).
The current red-green coalition government in its 2005 government declaration made the High North its top priority field both in domestic and foreign policy.
