Speech of Ambassador Muhammad Hassan President, ECO Cultural Institute (ECI) 29th International Public Administration Forum “Public Administration in the Turkic World: City, Culture, and Identity” Andijan, Uzbekistan | 15–18 September 2026
Speech of Ambassador Muhammad Hassan
President, ECO Cultural Institute (ECI)
29th International Public Administration Forum
“Public Administration in the Turkic World: City, Culture, and Identity”
Andijan, Uzbekistan | 15–18 September 2026
Distinguished Chairperson,
Honourable Ministers,
Excellencies,
Dear colleagues and friends,
It is a great honour to be with you in Andijan—a city that has, for centuries, stood at the crossroads of trade, scholarship and civilizations. It is also the birthplace of Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire, whose life reminds us that culture and identity do not remain within political borders; they travel with people, ideas, languages and memories.
There could hardly be a more appropriate setting for this year’s theme: “City, Culture, and Identity.”
I have been invited to speak about a subject that public administration has sometimes treated as secondary to the more conventional concerns of governance: culture.
My argument is simple: culture is not merely an ornament of public policy. It is an important dimension of governance, identity and international engagement.
For much of the twentieth century, public administration was understood mainly through security, economic development, law and service delivery. Culture was often left to separate institutions concerned with heritage, tourism or the arts.
That understanding is changing.
Effective governance today is not only about delivering services efficiently. It is also about understanding the cultural and social environment in which those services are delivered. A city's identity influences how people use public spaces, participate in civic life, protect heritage and relate to their communities.
Culture, therefore, should be considered part of public policy and public administration, rather than something added after the essential work of government is completed.
This has practical consequences. When governments restore historic districts, manage public spaces, support museums and libraries, preserve traditional crafts or digitize cultural collections, they are making decisions about identity, inclusion, education, tourism and intergenerational responsibility.
Good public administration must therefore ask not only what infrastructure we build, but what kind of city and society that infrastructure serves.
This perspective is particularly relevant to the Economic Cooperation Organization—ECO, which brings together ten countries extending from the Bosphorus to the Himalayas.
On a map, ECO is an organization of economic cooperation. Historically and culturally, however, our region represents something much deeper: an interconnected civilizational space shaped by Persian, Turkic and Islamic intellectual, literary and artistic traditions.
The poetry of Rumi and Alisher Navoi, the architecture of Samarkand, Isfahan and Bursa, the Silk Road, and our traditions of music, calligraphy, miniature painting and craftsmanship all testify to centuries of interaction.
The founders of ECO understood that economic cooperation cannot flourish in isolation from the human relationships that connect our peoples. The Treaty of Izmir therefore speaks of consolidating the “cultural affinities and spiritual and fraternal ties” among our peoples.
It was in this spirit that the ECO Cultural Institute—ECI was established in 1995, with Tehran as its headquarters.
ECI’s mandate is to strengthen cultural cooperation among Member States, safeguard our shared literary, artistic and philosophical heritage, and promote our architecture, archaeology, folklore, traditional music and cultural traditions.
From a public-administration perspective, our role is to facilitate knowledge, institutional dialogue and practical cooperation.
Through publications such as ECO Heritage, we contribute to comparative knowledge and policy dialogue. Through our programmes, we encourage Member States to share their experiences, histories and civilizations.
We also seek to connect cultural policy with education, tourism, urban development and the creative industries, because these areas increasingly depend upon one another.
Our purpose, therefore, is not simply to preserve the past. It is to help governments and institutions translate cultural heritage into contemporary public value.
And this brings me back to Andijan and to the central idea of this forum: the city as a living expression of culture and identity.
Every city in our region is a repository of history and memory.
For public administrators, the question is how this heritage becomes part of sound urban policy.
When a city restores a caravanserai, protects a historic neighbourhood, digitizes manuscripts, establishes a museum or revitalizes a traditional craft district, it is not simply preserving the past. It is also shaping tourism, education, employment, public access and the quality of civic life.
This is why cultural policy should be integrated into urban planning and development strategies, rather than treated as a separate sector.
There is also considerable scope for practical regional cooperation: joint exhibitions, academic exchanges, translations, cultural festivals, film collaborations and shared heritage initiatives can connect our cities and turn local experience into regional knowledge.
In this way, good local governance can contribute to regional cooperation—and regional cooperation can, in turn, strengthen local governance.
Our challenge is therefore not simply to preserve our cultural inheritance in monuments and archives. We must also research it, digitize it, translate it, teach it and make it accessible to new generations.
Excellencies, distinguished colleagues and friends,
Public administration in the Turkic world and our wider region cannot be understood only in terms of budgets, regulations and service delivery. It must also engage with memory, identity, belonging and the cultural character of our cities.
This does not mean that public administration should become cultural administration. It means that culture should be recognized as a legitimate consideration in public policy and development planning.
A well-governed city is not simply efficient. It is a city in which people recognize themselves, their history and their future.
For the ECO region, we do not need to create a shared cultural identity from nothing. Much of it already exists—in our histories, languages, literature, architecture, music and traditions, and above all, in centuries of interaction among our peoples.
Our task is to give that shared inheritance contemporary expression and make it a resource for cooperation and sustainable development.
The ECO Cultural Institute stands ready to contribute—to connect Andijan with Tabriz, Bursa with Bishkek, Lahore with Baku, and the many other cities that together form the cultural landscape of our region.
When the world looks towards our region, I hope it will see not simply ten separate national stories, but a rich and diverse civilization whose different voices can speak to one another—and, together, speak meaningfully to the wider world.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I look forward to our discussions and to learning from all of you during these important days in Andijan.
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