opportunity to develop and utilize their creative, artistic and intellectual potential.71 3.3 The UNESCO framework Zimbabwe is a signatory to the UNESCO’s Recommendations concerning the Status of the Artist (UNESCO Recommendations), and the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression, ratified in 2008 (UNESCO Convention). These instruments help to create and sustain a climate encouraging freedom of artistic expression and the material conditions facilitating the release of creative talents. The UNESCO Convention calls on states to formulate and implement their cultural policies and to adopt measures to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions. Although the term artistic freedom per se is not used in the text of the UNESCO Convention, it is clear that its intent, notably by virtue of the first of its ‘Guiding Principles’, already mentioned, resonates fully with the belief that it is essential to protect the freedom of expression in a range of culture-related domains. The Preamble of the Convention also reaffirms that ‘freedom of thought, expression and information, as well as diversity of the media, enable cultural expressions to flourish within societies’. The UNESCO Convention further provides for measures to promote cultural expression to create, produce, disseminate, distribute and have access to their own cultural expressions, paying due attention to the special circumstances and needs of women as well as various social groups, including persons belonging to minorities and indigenous peoples72. As a matter of fact, by 1980, the UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Status of the Artists had already stipulated that ‘freedom of expression and communication is the essential prerequisite for all artistic activities’ and enjoined Member States to ‘see that artists are unequivocally accorded the protection provided for in this respect by international and national legislation Zimbabwe ratified this instrument in September 2012. Available on http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001429/142919e.pdf accessed on 4 July 2015 71 72 55 | P a g e