Events and meetings on intangible cultural heritage (co-)organized by UNESCO

Intangible cultural heritage gaining ground at universities

How can universities integrate intangible cultural heritage in their programmes? How we get young people interested in this topic? These were some of the questions addressed at a roundtable organized on 5 December, as a side event to the 12th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage held in Jeju, Republic of Korea from 4 to 9 December.

‘It is no longer a question of whether intangible cultural heritage should be integrated in university programmes, but rather how’, stated Jyoti Hosagrahar, Director of the Division of Creativity at UNESCO, when addressing States Parties, NGOs, and experts who participated in the event. Universities have a key role to play in training administrators who will work in the area of heritage.

‘In most cases, intangible heritage is not treated as a separate subject’, analyzed Kwan Huh, Director General of the International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (ICHCAP). More frequently, we see it approached from different perspectives and across different disciplines such as anthropology, sociology and history.

Another challenge is the lack of interest from students. ‘We need to show young people that they are connected to intangible heritage, which they are often practicing without even realizing it. And, we need to make them understand that they have a key role to play in its transmission’, Annie Tohme Tabet, anthropologist and professor at Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Lebanon.

Despite the obstacles, the participants emphasized that nonetheless intangible heritage has a growing importance at universities. A study conducted by the UNESCO Office in Bangkok, Thailand in 2017 in Asia-Pacific received responses from 37 institutions in 18 countries. The survey shows that many of the disciplines related to tangible heritage (architecture, museology, etc.) ar

The UNESCO Office in Montevideo held a regional meeting on Cooperation mechanisms for intangible heritage and higher education in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 21 to 22 November, 2017. The meeting was held in cooperation with FLACSO (Latin American Social Sciences Institute), CRESPIAL (Regional Center for the Safeguarding of the ICH of Latin America) and IESALC (International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean) and the UNESCO Office in Havana, Regional Office for Culture for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Forty-three academics, managers and decision makers from thirty universities took part in the event coming from eleven countries across the region: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
The meeting promoted exchange and reflection on intangible heritage and higher education, with a particular focus on tertiary level cultural management programmes. Participants discussed the realities, needs, experiences, specificities, and expectations of universities in relation to the teaching of intangible heritage as an academic discipline.

This event benefited from financial support from the Fund for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Photos from the event can be viewed on flickr.

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.

The Secretariat of the Convention organizes an information and exchange session for the members of the Intergovernmental Committee on Tuesday, 3 October 2017. This meeting will take place in Room XI (Fontenoy) from 3 to 5 p.m.

The purpose of this meeting is to inform Committee members about the functioning of the Committee and its general working methods. The Secretariat wishes to inform all members of the Committee, before its twelfth session, on the provisional agenda of the twelfth session of the Committee. The Chairperson will inform the participants of the action taken by the Government of the Republic of Korea regarding its hosting of the Committee’s next session in Jeju Island, Republic of Korea (4-9 December 2017). This information meeting is also open to interested States Parties, which are not members of the Committee and States not party to the Convention.

• Presentation of the Secretariat: English|French
• Presentation of the Republic of Korea: English|French

The city of Esquipulas, Chiquimula, hosted a training workshop on participatory inventory methodology as advocated in the 2003 Convention in the framework of the project ‘Strengthening national capacities for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in Guatemala’. Thirty participants from the Ministry of Culture and Sports, local municipalities, civil society and local communities discussed both the theoretical and practical aspects of how to carry out a community-based inventory of intangible cultural heritage. Following this one-week training, a pilot inventory activity in the eastern region of Guatemala was carried out.