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

A new capacity-building project has been launched, thanks to the generous contribution of the Government of Azerbaijan. The project continues the efforts to implement the main principles of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Guatemala´s institutional structures and local social organizations.

A capacity-building workshop on the implementation of the 2003 Convention at the national level was held in Guatemala City from 3 to 7 April 2017. This marked the beginning of a series of activities being organized in close cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Guatemala throughout 2017.
The workshop involved municipal personnel from several localities of Guatemala, personnel from the Ministry, as well as representatives of civil society and communities that act as the bearers of intangible cultural heritage.

This first activity aimed to raise awareness among local and national actors about the principles, scope and objectives of the Convention, with a view to highlighting its effectiveness as a tool to guarantee the continuity of living heritage.

L’atelier de formation a été organisé à Atar du 01 au 03 avril 2017. Il a été inauguré par Monsieur le Wali de l’Adrar, le conservateur général du patrimoine ainsi que la coordinatrice du projet au Bureau de l’UNESCO pour le Maghreb. Une douzaine de participants avait une bonne connaissance, dans l’ensemble, des dispositions de la Convention compte tenu de leur participation aux ateliers portant sur la mise en œuvre de la Convention (IMP), la réalisation d’inventaires avec la participation des communautés (INV) et la préparation de candidatures aux Listes de la Convention (NOM). Les nouveaux participants, y compris les quatre femmes qui participaient pour la première fois, ont reçu une copie des textes de base qui sont sensés leur permettre de se familiariser avec la Convention. Les facilitateurs les ont également orientés vers le site internet de la Convention sur lequel ils peuvent trouver, à tout moment, des réponses à leurs questions. L’exercice de la demande d’assistance internationale fictive de « la province de Highland » a été très utile. De manière concrète et pratique, les participants ont mesuré la distance entre une demande d’assistance internationale qui a des chances d’être acceptée et une autre qui n’en a pas. Ils ont relevé les lacunes et les erreurs de la demande de « la province de Highland » tant au niveau du fonds qu’au niveau de la forme. Au niveau du fonds, ils ont surtout relevé : le caractère non participatif de la demande, son résumé lacunaire et peu convaincant, son approche centralisée et descendante, ses objectifs superlatifs et non qualitatifs, la marginalisation des détenteurs, les bénéfices tirés de la demande principalement par l’administration centrale, l’inadéquation entre les activités, le budget et le calendrier, entre autres. L’attention des participants a, encore, une fois, été attirée sur la qualité moyenne de la traduction en arabe, et de la nécessité de se référer aux versions française et an

Sint Maarten directed its training at high school students, who worked with persons who made traditional deserts and drinks. Three training sessions were held with youth to include 27 females and 6 males, who worked along with the ICH Committee and 9 practitioners. 

Under this project, Fiji organized 4 training workshops, gathering 113 participants, half of them being women.

Case studies presented by local practitioners as well as a panel discussion enriched the workshop on the implementation of the Convention (September 2015). This set-up allowed this first workshop to be well grounded in the reality of Fiji and encouraged the active participation of stakeholders. Several members of chiefdom status attended the event and reiterated the need to include ICH safeguarding on the permanent agenda of high-level meetings in each district and province.

The workshop on community-based inventory (February 2016) analysed and built up on successful past initiatives such as the inventorying and mapping projects carried out in the past in Fiji. Staff from the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs co-facilitated sessions on the technical aspects of ICH inventorying (e.g. taking photos and videos). Participants documented 5 elements during a field trip to Nabukaluka village: eel fishing method, traditional chants, food preparation, house construction techniques, and oral history. In preparation, the community was consulted as early as December 2015 following a locally accepted process and authorized the participants to come to their village to contribute to the documentation of the local ICH.
The workshop on developing safeguarding plans for ICH (October 2017) complemented the theoretical role-play with the analysis of 3 Fijian elements: Vakamalolo tradition sitting meke (dance) of the Tui Lawa people of Yanuya; salt making traditions from Lomawi village, and the making of traditional fishing nets of the Sawau people of Beqa. Several practitioners shared their knowledge of selected elements so that participants could practice developing safeguarding plans. The practical value of this exercise was a strong motivating factor for participants. The capacity-building cycle was completed with the workshop on the preparation of nominations to the lists of the Convention (February 2017).

Fina

In January 2015, the WHO Regional Office for Europe convened its first expert group meeting on the cultural contexts of health (CCH), thereby initiating a project that seeks to build a platform for research from the health-related humanities and social sciences to support the implementation of Health 2020, the European policy framework for health and well-being. The second meeting of the expert group was convened in April 2016 to further explore how research from the humanities and social sciences can inform policy-making, and how a greater awareness of the importance of CCH can be promoted both within WHO and more broadly in the public health arena.

The purpose of this third meeting of the CCH expert group, co-organized with UNESCO on 13-14 March at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris will be two-fold. The first day will be dedicated to reviewing and inputting on the various pieces of technical work, which are currently being developed by the CCH project team. On day two, the meeting will shift towards recommending new areas of work and development for 2017, with a particular focus on research methodologies and concrete research outputs.

This is an invitation-only meeting for experts from the health related humanities and social sciences, as well as experts from public health, UNESCO, and other relevant international organizations, whose focus is on the intersection of culture, health and well-being.

Documents

• Scope and purpose: English
• Agenda: English

The workshop was organized by the Regional Centre in Sofia for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage in South-Eastern Europe under the auspices of UNESCO and the Ministry of culture of Republic of Montenegro. The workshop was dedicated to the preparation of nominations for inscription in the UNESCO lists and included presentations on these issues and practical activities for preparing nominations for elements of intangible cultural heritage.
The workshop took place almost 6 years after the UNESCO workshop dedicated to community-based inventorying and 4 years after the completion of subsequent inventorying campaign carried out by relevant institutions and coordinated by The Ministry of culture of Montenegro. Demonstrating the steps that institutions in Montenegro are taking in implementing the Convention on a national level, the workshop this year benefited from the previous experience, as it involved participants who had part in training and inventorying work before.

Within the framework of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Section’s Global strategy on strengthening national capacities to safeguard intangible cultural heritage, the Section is organizing a strategy meeting with facilitators from 6 to 9 March 2017 in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Culture Unit of the UNESCO Bangkok Office.

Purpose:
In the process of developing the next quadrennial UNESCO programme (2018 to 2022), and in light of the latest developments in the implementation of the Convention, this workshop will intend to involve facilitators in vision building and strategic thinking about the future of the Convention’s global capacity-building programme and the facilitators’ network.

Main objectives:
1. Consolidate facilitators’ perspectives on the relevance and future potential of the capacity-building programme;
2. Assess the evolution, effects and potential of the global facilitators’ network;
3. Develop ideas and recommendations for the future of the programme and the network.

Participants:
The meeting will bring together about 30 participants, mainly UNESCO-trained facilitators involved in delivering capacity-building services as well as Field Office colleagues in the Culture Sector, and a team from the Intangible Cultural Heritage Section. The participants also include observers from Category 2 centres working on capacity building.

Documents

• Agenda of the Meeting : English|French
• Concept note: English|French
• Cross-regional Analysis of Facilitators’ Reports: English|French
• Facilitators survey results report: English|French
• Final report - Envisioning the future of the global capacity-building programme and its facilitators’ network - Strategy meeting with facilitators: English|French
• Information Note: English|French

This workshop is an activity of a two-year (2014-2016) project financed by UNESCO/Japan Fund-in-Trust, to support effective implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Nigeria. The objective of the workshop is to develop the capacities of the local community members through community-based inventorying training.

The workshop was facilitated by UNESCO-trained facilitator Silverse Anami and national facilitator Professor G.G Darah.

A similar workshop was held in Calabar from 10-14 October 2016 and Oyo from 14 – 18 November 2016.

The UNESCO Sri Lanka Policy Mission that took place from 23 to 27 January 2017 had as its objective the provision of advice and recommendations to the Government of Sri Lanka on possible policy/legal framework and action plan for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in its national territory.