The culture ministry will jointly host a series of round table conferences on culture and development with the Korean National Commission for UNESCO, with the first scheduled to be held in Seoul on Friday.

The first conference, at the Millennium Hilton Hotel, will address the role of cultural diversity for sustainable development, organizers said Thursday.

Lee O-young, a former culture minister, will deliver the keynote speech, followed by presentations by three experts on the theme of "Cases of Regional Development via Utilization of Culture," then general discussion, they said.

The second and third conferences will be held on Sept. 21 and Dec. 7, also in Seoul.

The conferences are organized under a recommendation in the United Nations resolution on Culture and Development, which was adopted at the 66th U.N. General Assembly in 2011 to establish measures for sustainable development from a cultural perspective. The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity adopted by UNESCO in 2001 also stipulates that culture is an essential element of sustainable development.