This paper is based on the research mapping the training experiences in cultural management in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (2016). It addresses the topic of application of ‘western’ cultural management knowledge in the Global South, specifically in MENA countries. Foreign actors are offering cultural management format programmes on neoliberal Western experiences. As a tool of soft power, they are mainly used for changing the image of the Western countries and for widening the market for their products. Our position is that skills and knowledge related to cultural management cannot be transferred without discussing cultural policy context and involving local professionals. We argue that developmental and internationalist discourse of progress and modernisation has to be critically analysed in order to secure mutual respect between Global North and South.