For instance, Wally N'Dow, special adviser to administrator, UNDP, in his talk on `Sheltering People in the Culture of Cities', said: ``If the pathway to the future in terms of global commerce is globalisation of the economy, the best pathway to human development and to all peace, might I submit, has to be local action in the towns, in the streets, in the hamlets, in the little villages.'' He also added, ``It also has to be joint action at the international level to enable us all to maximise human development.''

Lord Jacob Rothschild, chairman, RIT Capital Partners, who has been responsible for the distribution of Pound 1.25 billion of National Lottery proceeds to support the heritagesector in the UK, made an important point. He began by saying that the National Lottery, which was set up to benefit five good causes-heritage of Britain, sport, arts, charities, millennium celebrations-became a feature of national life.

``Thirty million out of a population of 44 million in the UK play the lottery, and turnover is running at nearly POUNDS 5 billion a year, and the five good causes are sharing about POUNDS 1.5 million a year between them.'' Now the significant suggestion from Rothschild: ``The time could just be right for a World National Lottery which could be distributed through the Internet and through other, more established channels. If you could do that, that indeed would be an incredible prize.'' He added: ``Some of you would feel moral problems. But the impact, as you can see, could be quite enormous.''

Also talking about impact was Milagros Del Corral, director, Division of Creativity, Cultural Industries and Copyright, Unesco. Speaking in the context of investing in culturalindustries, Corral said: ``Unesco decided in 1995 to include the development of cultural industries as a new component of cultural policies in the organisation's medium-strategy which began in 1996 and will conclude in 2001.''

She explained that cultural industries are soft industries and that they don't benefit from traditional bank loans and guarantee system. So, Corral made a plea for an alternative finance plan. She said: ``The World Bank's promising new adaptable lending scheme could be an excellent solution if appropriate new categories are added to the bank's product line in order to meet the particular needs of emerging cultural industries, particularly as regards the audiovisual sector.''

Cultural industries, Corral said, were the core of a sound strategy aiming to foster culture and development. Towards that end, she said: ``A closer partnership with with Unesco and the World Bank could consolidate our action in assessing the needs of member states for the formulation of cultural-industriespolicies and strategies--be it in the light of an eventual global cultural fund or in the light of the bank's new adaptable programme lending, or the learning and innovation loans.'' So much for cultural industries which incorporate four crucial Cs--culture, creativity, copyright and commerce, according to Corral.