Global capacity-building programme

The three countries of North Africa, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia, benefited from a program to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage through the strengthening of national capacities implemented by the UNESCO Office in Rabat between 2013 and 2015 thanks to funding from Norway. This program resulted in three workshops organized in each of the countries concerned on: (i) the implementation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention (IMP); (ii) Participatory Inventory with Communities (INV); and (iii) the preparation of nominations for inclusion in the Convention Lists (NOM).
The second phase of this program is implemented by UNESCO in the three countries with funding from Catalonia between 2017 and 2018. It intends to deepen the capacity building on other themes but also support the policy of Tunisia in this domain. These are: (i) a workshop in each of the three countries on the development of safeguarding plans; (ii) a workshop in each of the three countries on the preparation of international assistance requests; and (iii) support to Tunisia for the development of a national strategy for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage.

UNESCO Multisectoral Office, Abuja in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Culture organizes the final stakeholders’ meeting leading to the end of the implementation process of the project “Safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage of Nigeria through an integrated approach”. The objective of the meeting is to share the inventory reports from the three communities involved (Bida, Calabar and Oyo), with the stakeholders. In addition, the Independent Evaluator will present findings on the project implementation with recommendations for future actions to ensure the sustainability of the results of the project.

About fifty participants from government Ministries, Agencies, Civil Society, culture related Non-Governmental Organizations would participate at the meeting. Dignitaries expected at the meeting include the Ambassador of Japan in Nigeria, Ambassador of Indonesia and the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea. Others diginataries would include representatives from some United Nations Agencies, ECOWAS and British Council.

Training of trainers workshop for the European chapter of the global facilitators’ network

In the context of the global capacity-building programme for the effective implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the workshop intends to expand the regional chapter of the programme’s facilitators’ network and strengthen its delivery capacity to respond to capacity-building needs in European and, in particular, Eastern European countries. UNESCO is organizing the workshop thanks to the generous support of the Regional Centre for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in South-Eastern Europe in Sofia, Bulgaria, and the funds from the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund.

The training content and methodology will take into account recommendations of the recent global programme strategy meeting held in Bangkok in March 2017. The strategy meeting highlighted the need for a stronger focus on strengthening institutional capacities at national level, the development of national networks of trainers and consideration of the changing role of facilitators, which has evolved from delivering training workshops to providing advisors, acting as mediators and as resource persons concerning all matters related to the implementation of the Convention.

Accordingly, the Sofia training workshop will: 1) analyse the lessons learned to date from implementing UNESCO’s global capacity-building programme in Europe; 2) strengthen participants’ knowledge and competencies required to be a facilitator in the network; 3) provide hands-on experience using the UNESCO capacity-building curriculum, including the recently developed materials on elaborating safeguarding plans.

Documents

• Background Note: English
• List of participants: English
• Programme: English
• Workshop objectives: English in preparation
• The UNESCO Capacity-Building Programme : English in preparation
• The Convention with a focus on the European context: English in preparation

From April 3rd to 13th 2017, a UNESCO led ‘Community-based Inventorying Training Workshop for Strengthening National Capacities for Implementing the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Eritrea’ was undertaken. Participants were from community members across the country, from the nine cultural groups and Director Generals or regional authorities on culture from the six administrative regions. The workshop, which was led by an international expert (Dr Lovemore Mazibuko) with support from a national expert (Dr Senait Bahta) enabled the participants to achieve the approaches and methods for inventorying ICH. After the workshop, the trainees were assigned the responsibility to train community members in the regions they represent.

Following the workshop, a work plan for fieldwork on inventorying ICH in all the nine cultural groups was drafted by the Cultural Affairs Bureau, an international expert and national expert. As per the advice of the international expert, it was appropriate to begin inventorying fieldwork with a few elements from each cultural group, rather than focus on only one group in order to allow all participants to practice the community based inventory techniques they had learned during the workshop. Two elements of ICH from each of the nine cultural groups were selected with the assistance of community members, Director Generals for Culture in each of the six zone administrative offices. The National expert formed Regional teams of at least five in a team to lead the inventorying work in each of the nine culture groups. The team formed consisted of a local language speaker, (who is the interviewer), a note taker, a sound recorder and audiovisual expert.

The current report results from the needs assessment that was carried out in September-December 2017 on the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The assessment was guided by the intention to explore the legislative and policy documents in the sphere of ICH in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to analyze the institutional and administrative framework for the implementation of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention, and to study the situation of awareness-raising activities, inventorying procedures, and educational and training programs on ICH issues in the country. The goal was to outline the major challenges encountered in the implementation of the 2003 Convention on the national level, to identify the main needs in the field of ICH safeguarding, and to propose recommendations for improvement, with a special attention to aspects of urgency, sustainability, and long-terms effects. The needs assessment will enable to tailor further actions within the framework of UNESCO global capacity-building strategy for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, especially by using the opportunity to elaborate requests for international assistance from the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund, established under the 2003 Convention.

The Capacity Building Workshop on the Implementation of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) and Community-based ICH Inventorying in Tuvalu took place at the Conference Room of the Government Building in Funafuti from 24 to 29 July 2017 and was the first of its kind to be held in-country. The Workshop was organized by the Tuvalu Ministry of Home Affairs and Rural Development (MHARD) and the Tuvalu National Commission for UNESCO (NATCOM) with funding from the Rei Foundation via UNESCO (Apia) Office. The Workshop brought together 40 participants (23 male and 17 female, including 11 youth 15 – 24 years old). They are from government (14), community leaders (7), representatives of the Women’s’ Council and the Youth Council of 8 islands that make up Tuvalu. The Workshop was facilitated by Mr. Sipiriano Nemani, Director of the Fiji Museum and UNESCO accredited ICH trainer and Ms. Akatsuki Takahashi, Programme Specialist for Culture, UNESCO Office for the Pacific States.

This workshop is related to the development of safeguarding plans and aims at developing and strengthening the capacities of representatives of different governmental and non-governmental organizations, institutions, communities and other specialists to ensure that these stakeholders are able to master this issue. central aspect of the implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. At the end of this workshop, participants will have gained in-depth knowledge of the Convention oriented towards safeguarding and a good understanding of the concept of safeguarding ICH, as advocated by the Convention and its Operational Guidelines. They will also know why and how the communities, groups and individuals involved should be the main actors involved in the design and implementation of all ICH safeguarding activities and understand how to prepare coherent and good safeguarding plans. quality, taking into account the interests of each other. They will also be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the ICH safeguarding plans and will have the basic techniques and methodologies for carrying out safeguarding plans that can meet the needs of their ICH. This will undoubtedly help the State Party and the communities concerned to better manage the various aspects related to the implementation of the Convention.

As part of the project “Support to the Effective Implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Nigeria” UNESCO’s Abuja Regional office in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture is organizing a workshop on the preparation of nomination files to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List. Participants will be selected from the Nigeria’s Ministry of Information and Culture. They will be equipped with the capacity to prepare nomination files for inscription on the Urgent Safeguarding List (USL) and the Representative List (RL) as well as the preparation of requests for international assistance for safeguarding purposes.

The forthcoming capacity building workshop is part of UNESCO’s extrabudgetary projects generously supported by Japan Fund-in-Trust (J-FIT), in view to contribute to the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage in Nigeria.

Strengthening the implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage: sub-regional training workshop for facilitators from Central Asia

This training workshop is designed to equip a group of resource persons from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with the knowledge and tools required to conduct training workshops for the effective implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Central Asia. UNESCO is organizing the training in the context of the Convention’s global capacity-building programme and as a follow-up to a previous three-year capacity-building project implemented by UNESCO in the four above-mentioned countries. The training workshop is made possible thanks to the generous support of the International Training Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (CRIHAP) and collaboration with the National Commission of the Kyrgyz Republic for UNESCO.

The workshop intends to familiarise a core group of resource persons from the benefitting countries with the content and pedagogic approaches of some of the themes covered in the capacity-building curriculum developed by UNESCO on the implementation of the Convention at national level. It will also provide an opportunity for participants to interact with experienced facilitators on lessons learnt so far from implementing UNESCO’s global strategy, specifically with regard to Central Asia.

Documents

• Programme/ Программа: English|Russian
• Workshop Note/ Информационная записка: English|Russian
• Overview of participants answers to survey / Обзор ответов участников на опрос: English|Russian
• Introduction of the 2003 Convention and its capacity-building programme/ Представление Конвенции 2003 года и его программы по укреплению потенциала: English|Russian
• Key concepts of the Convention/ Основные понятия Конвенции: English|Russian
• Capacity-building curriculum – contents, pedagogy and the role of facilitators/ Учебная программа по укреплению потенциала - содержание, педагогика и фасилитация: English|Russian
• Identification and inventorying/ Идентификация и инвентаризация : English|Russian
• Gender and intangible cultural heritage/ Гендер и нематериальное культурное наследие: English|Russian
• Introduction of the workshop on developing safeguarding plans/ Введение в семинар по разработке планов охраны: English|Russian
• Nominations in the capacity-building curriculum/ Номинации в учебной программе по укреплению потенциала: English|Russian
• International assistance requests in the capacity-building curriculum/ Заявки на международную помощь в учебной программе по укреплению потенциала: English|Russian
• ICH and sustainable development/ НКН и устойчивое развитие: English|Russian

The capacity-building project to safeguard Guatemala’s intangible cultural heritage (ICH) continued with a training workshop on community-based inventorying that took place in Guatemala City and in Santa Apolonia from 5 to 11 June.

Organized in cooperation with Guatemala’s Vice Ministry of Natural and Cultural Heritage, the two main objectives of the workshop were to strengthen the institutional and human capacities of the western municipalities to define and identify the intangible cultural heritage present in their territory and to establish the technical capacities required to implement a pilot project on inventorying, with the participation of the local communities and non-governmental organizations.

Divided into two sections, one theoretical and one practical, the training on the basic concepts of inventorying was held in Guatemala, while the practical exercises in the field took place in the municipality of Santa Apolonia, Chimaltenango. Participants had the opportunity to perform participatory observations of local ICH elements and record them, such as the ´Torito´s dance´, local culinary traditions, weaving techniques and ceramic production.

In the National Database for Information, Registration and Documentation of Mongolia in overall number are registered 8066 ICH practitioners and 177 ICH elements. The practitioners number in above mentioned database from Eastern Region or namely from Khentii, Dornod and Sukhbaatar provinces are in total 580, which means it covers only 7.2%. Besides, there are very few number of ICH practitioners and ICH elements, which are belongs to certain ethnic groups who are settled in Khentii, Dornod and Sukhbaatar provinces, namely from ethnic groups such as Uzemchin, Barga, Khamnigan, Buriad and Dariganga.
Therefore, with a view to ensuring bottom-up approaches (notably the active participation of practitioner communities) to safeguarding and inventorying ICH we aimed to carry out a pilot inventory in Eastern area of Mongolia. In these are, namely Khentii, Dornod, Sukhbaatar provinces, where the ICH research and inventorying is respectively not so strong and settled by several ethnic groups as a minorities and diverse ICH, such as Khamnigan, Buriad, Bargut (Barga), Uzemchin, Dariganga.
In framework of ICH inventorying was undertaken on following programmes:
A. Organize methodological training for the local officers and practitioners on ICH Safeguarding and Inventorying ICH.
B. Field ICH Elements Inventorying and Documentation of Buriad, Bargut (Barga), Uzemchin, Dariganga and Khamnigan ethnic groups.
C. Promote knowledge and practice of community-based approaches in ICH inventorying.

The training workshop was organized from 26 to 28 May 2017 in Beni Mellal with the participation of 23 people. As at the Tabarka workshop (Tunisia), it was necessary to add an introductory presentation on the Convention and its key concepts to enable participants who had not taken part in previous workshops to become acquainted with the main lines of this instrument. normative and the requirements of its implementation. Due to the large number of these, questions and clarifications have been asked, especially by academics and NGO members. On the other hand, those who participated in all or part of the four workshops (IMP, INV, NOM and AI) were able to have a partial or global idea, as the case may be, of the process of safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage. The big challenge they highlighted is related to the participatory process of implementation. It can be said that participants gained (i) knowledge of the 2003 Convention, (ii) an overview of a failed international assistance request, and (iii) the methodology for assessing requests for international assistance. All have understood that good demand is expressed in a straightforward and straightforward language, that coherence should govern all sections, that the balance between activities / budget / timetable should be ensured and that, above all, it must have been prepared with the participation of the largest number of stakeholders, the most important of which are the communities, groups and individuals concerned.

The Intangible Cultural Heritage Section is developing new partnerships with relevant educational institutions in the context of the next quadrennial UNESCO programme (2018–2021). To this end it organized an intersectoral meeting on ‘Integrating intangible cultural heritage in education’ from 17 to 19 May 2017 at UNESCO Headquarters, which brought together 40 colleagues working in education and in intangible cultural heritage at the UNESCO Education Institutes, in Field Offices and at Headquarters.

Participants discussed the interface between intangible cultural heritage and education with special reference to the Sustainable Development Goal, Target 4.7 on learning for the ‘promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development’ to achieve Goal 4 on quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all.

They shared concrete project experiences from Latina America, Africa and Asia and the Pacific on how to promote transmission and safeguarding of integrating intangible cultural heritage through all forms of education (formal, non-formal and informal). Collectively, they generated ideas for future action, including operational projects, the joint development of conceptual frameworks, policy guidance and monitoring.

The meeting was a milestone in building new partnerships between the Education and Culture Sectors.

Documents

• Meeting report: English|French
• Provisional meeting agenda: English in preparation