Reuniones sobre el patrimonio cultural inmaterial organizadas o coorganizadas por la UNESCO

Del 22 al 23 de octubre de 2012 y del 24 al 25 de octubre del 2012, Bogotá dio la bienvenida a dos talleres sucesivos sobre la salvaguardia del patrimonio cultural inmaterial y la aplicación de la Convención de 2003 en Colombia, examinando sus retos y fortalezas.

Dos facilitadores acreditados de la UNESCO, Fabián Bedon y Lucas dos Santos Roque, animaron la sesión ante un público de representantes comunitarios, para el primer taller, y ante funcionarios del patrimonio cultural del Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia para el segundo. Los talleres permitieron a los participantes de mejorar su conocimiento sobre el PCI y sobre los aspectos que constituyen la Convención de 2003, las distintas maneras de poner en práctica su contenido y la importancia de la creación de un Comité Nacional para implementar estas acciones.

Del 15 al 19 de octubre de 2012, La Paz dio la bienvenida a tres talleres sucesivos sobre los resultados y la continuidad de la aplicación de la Convención de 2003 en Bolivia, examinando sus retos y fortalezas.

Dos facilitadores acreditados de la UNESCO, Fabián Bedon y Lucas dos Santos Roque, animaron la sesión ante un público de funcionarios del patrimonio cultural del Ministerio de Culturas de Bolivia. El taller permitió a los participantes de mejorar su conocimiento sobre el PCI y sobre los aspectos que constituyen la Convención de 2003, las distintas maneras de poner en práctica su contenido y la importancia de la creación de un Comité Nacional para implementar estas acciones.

Apenas un mes después de la ratificación por los Países Bajos de la Convención para la salvaguardia del patrimonio cultural inmaterial de 2003 (que se extiende no sólo a la parte europea de los Países Bajos sino también a su parte caribeña y a Aruba), la UNESCO llevó a cabo en Oranjestad un taller sobre los conceptos clave de la Convención y las principales implicaciones de la ratificación. La reunión, que se inscribe dentro del marco de un proyecto regional de fortalecimiento de capacidades para la salvaguardia del patrimonio cultural inmaterial en el Caribe con el apoyo del Fondo del patrimonio cultural inmaterial gracias a la generosa contribución de Noruega, fue inaugurado por el Sr. Arthur Dowers, Ministro de Educación, la Sra. Ineke Strouken, Presidenta del Centro Neerlandés de Cultura Popular y del Patrimonio Inmaterial y el Coordinador de Cultura de UNESCO La Habana, el Sr. Fernando Brugman.

El taller fue organizado gracias a la excelente labor realizada por la Comisión Nacional de Aruba para la UNESCO con el apoyo de la Dirección de Patrimonio Cultural de Aruba y contó con la presencia de unos 25 representantes de las más significativas instituciones culturales del país a quienes brindó la oportunidad de debatir sobre la estrategia de aplicación de la Convención de 2003 en Aruba. El carácter inclusivo de la Convención fue objeto de debate comprendiendo que, en las condiciones de una rápida globalización, era un elemento fundamental de cohesión, reconocimiento mutuo y respeto.

El taller fue honrado con la visita de la Sra. Michelle Hooyboer-Winklaar, Ministra de Economía, Asuntos Sociales y Cultura, quien, en entrevista con el representante de la UNESCO, insistió en la necesidad vital de la salvaguardia del patrimonio cultural en Aruba.

Documentos

• Lista de participantes: inglés
• Orden del día: inglés

The project was launched with the first actions taking place in June this year. A general Coordinator was selected in accordance with the profile set out in the prodoc, and the first informative communications were sent out (Argentine National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO and Japanese Embassy in Argentina), and subsequently to the Secretariat for Culture of the Nation, the Argentine Foreign Office, the Uruguayan National Commission for UNESCO, etc. At the same time, communication was established with Ms. Mónica Lacarrieu member of the UNESCO Trainers network, to confirm her participation as the main resource person for the Project. Mr. Francisco López Morales was also contacted with the same purpose.

In the context of Phase III of the Mediterranean Living Heritage (MedLiHer) project financed by the Euromed Heritage IV Programme (EU) and implemented by UNESCO, the Lebanese National Commission for UNESCO and the Ministry of Culture are organizing a workshop on the methodology and procedures of nominating intangible cultural heritage elements to the Representative and Urgent Safeguarding Lists. This workshop will take place in Byblos from 12 to 14 October 2012.

The targeted group in the present training workshop consists of representative of the UNESCO Regional Office, the Lebanese National Commission for UNESCO, the Ministry of Culture (especially who are directly involved in the administration and the preparation of the documents and deliverables of the project), in addition to the members of the Lebanese MEDLIHER Team and an expert of Zajal.

Two accredited UNESCO facilitators, Prof. Dr. Annie Tabet (Lebanon) and Prof. Dr. Hani Hayajneh (Jordan), will run the workshop.

Argentina, Uruguay y Paraguay lanzan un programa de fortalecimiento de capacidades para la salvaguardia de su patrimonio vivo: titulado “Patrimonio Vivo”, el proyecto está organizado por la Oficina UNESCO de Montevideo y financiado por Japón.

Durante la segunda semana de octubre de 2012, el primer taller presentará los conceptos clave y los mecanismos de la Convención. Examinará los desafíos de su implementación, no sólo a nivel nacional sino a nivel internacional: de hecho, la cooperación entre los tres países está al centro del proyecto.

El taller reunirá a las comunidades, expertos y funcionarios de las provincias del nordeste de Argentina Catamarca, Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, y delegaciones de Uruguay y Paraguay, entre ellos representantes del Museo del Barro de Asunción en Paraguay.

Dos facilitadores capacitados por la UNESCO implementarán el taller: Francisco López Morales, director del Patrimonio Mundial del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INHA) en México, y Mónica Lacarrieu, Director del Programa de Antropología Cultural del Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA).

In the context of Phase III of “Mediterranean Living Heritage” (MedLiHer) project, co-funded by the European Union (EU) and UNESCO, a workshop on the methodology and procedures of nominating intangible cultural heritage elements to the Representative and Urgent Safeguarding Lists will be held in Amman between 7 and 11 October 2012.

The Amman workshop follows the Madaba one and will focus on the preparation of nomination files for inscription on the Lists of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). It will describe the requirements of the nominations’ process, evaluate sample nominations, and discuss descriptions of the elements from the Madaba Inventory and the participation of communities.

The workshop is intended primarily for members from the Jordan National Commission for Education, Culture and Science and the Ministry of Culture, and especially the ones that are directly involved in the administration and the preparation of the documents and deliverables of the project. Some of them are connected to the local communities of Madaba.

Two accredited UNESCO facilitators, Prof. Dr. Hani Hayajneh (Jordan) and Prof. Dr. Mustafa Gad (Egypt), will run the workshop. They will use the UNESCO capacity-building workshop materials in training activities, and deal with some nominations predefined by the UNESCO as case studies.

Sao Tome and Principe’s ratification of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), in 2005, has just been the first step into a much larger reflection on the construction of a national cultural policy. Within the frame of a capacity-building project in selected Portuguese speaking African countries (including also Angola and Mozambique) funded by a generous contribution of the Kingdom of Norway to the ICH Fund, Sao Tome and Principe is now about to welcome a UNESCO training-seminar on strengthening national capacities for an effective safeguarding of its intangible cultural heritage.

The project is timely, since the government is now ready to launch a wide reflection on the issue of culture and to raise awareness about the preservation of the country’s cultural heritage, especially the intangible heritage.

The most urgent need is to build knowledge on the concepts and mechanisms of the 2003 Convention, and to assist Sao Tome and Principe in developing the institutional framework required to effectively implement the Convention in a long term.

The project will therefore focus on strengthening key stakeholders, establishing a national ICH committee and setting basis for the elaboration of a national strategy for safeguarding ICH.

In order to intensify its collaboration with youth in the implementation of the 2003 Convention, UNESCO launches three sub-regional youth forums in South-Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Central Africa.

The first one is the youth seminar of Sofia, taking place from 24 to 25 September 2012 and organized by the Regional Centre for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in South-Eastern Europe (a category 2 centre under the auspices of UNESCO) in Sofia, Bulgaria. The participants of the forum are students, researchers and representatives of youth organizations in the region, exploring and debating the role of youth in the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage.

Following training on strengthening national capacities for implementing the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), Zambia, Botswana, Malawi and Zimbabwe have recently further benefited from a policy and legal framework review meeting convened in Harare from 3 to 7 September 2012.

These four countries are already motivated to safeguard their intangible heritage with the support of UNESCO/Flanders Fund-in-Trust. Participants from the four countries acknowledged that awareness of safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage has been widely raised in recent years and cultural heritage does no longer end at monuments and collections of objects. It also includes traditions or living expressions such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts. The importance of intangible cultural heritage is not the cultural manifestation itself, but rather the wealth of knowledge and skills that is transmitted through it from one generation to the next. While fragile, intangible cultural heritage is an important factor in maintaining cultural diversity in the face of growing globalisation.

The need to speed up the process of developing policies and legislations was identified within the framework of UNESCO/Flanders FIT project for the Convention to be effectively implemented and domesticated. Some of them do not yet have relevant legislation such as national cultural policies and various Acts of parliament to anchor the implementation of the convention in their respective countries. For those that do have them, the policies are in need of revision to accommodate provisions more related to ICH safeguarding. Thus, consultants have been contracted by UNESCO Harare Office to conduct policy review in each of the four countries with the purpose to facilitate this workshop and the future policy revision process in the long run. Papers presented by Mr Marc Jacobs from Belgium, Mr Lovemore Mazibuko from Malawi and Dr Francis Matambirofa from Zimbabwe during the workshop examined various ways to do with the convention, among topics that included Intellectual Property Rights Protection, Policies and Development of National actions plans.

Currently, challenges remain are mainly funding and coordination to take the capacity building activities to the communities at local levels. The participants hoped that various ministries such as the ministry of sport, arts education and culture will continue with their efforts for fund-raising and other support for this worthwhile cause of safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage.

Using audiovisual as a vector in the promotion of Mediterranean Living heritage is the ambition of the Egyptian, Lebanese and Jordanian filmmakers and photographers, who will gather at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris from 27 to 29 August 2012 in the framework of the Medliher project.

The project, co-funded by the European Union and UNESCO, has indeed a strong regional component devoted to the visibility of intangible cultural heritage of the partner countries. It is in this light that a documentary film and photographic exhibition will be made honoring the heritage of the governorates of Damietta in Egypt, Madaba in Jordan and Lebanon Zajal poetry. Those various elements of cultural heritage are at the heart of the inventory work undertaken as part of Phase III of the project.

The meeting in August aims at:

• developing a common vision of the film project between the coordinator/regional director and the national directors and photographers,
  
• formulating key messages that are going to be broadcasted through the film
  
• defining a methodology taking into account the spirit of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage: its context, deadlines, budget, target audience and
  
• elaborating a work plan defining the roles of each participant and the technical issues to be addressed.

The work of filmmakers and photographers will help to raise public awareness at the international level, as well as that of concerned countries on the importance of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in today’s world. The film will be screened and photographs exhibited at the Maison des Cultures du Monde in Paris. Furthermore, it is currently envisaged that the documentary would also be broadcasted by local television stations in participating countries.

ICH training-seminar in Dushanbe

UNESCO training-seminar «Strengthening national capacities for effective safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in the countries of Central Asia» was conducted in Dushanbe, Tajikistan from August 21 to August 25, 2012.

Part of a series of seminars for local specialist, the training was organized by the UNESCO Cluster Office in Almaty and supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in cooperation with the Tajikistan National Commission for UNESCO.

Participants in the training included staff of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Tajikistan, the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, the Tajik National Conservatory, representatives of public and private museums, representatives of NGOs taking part in the preservation of intangible cultural heritage, as well as artisans and musicians.

An Opening speech was given by Ms. Farogat Azizi, Deputy Minister of Culture of the Republic of Tajikistan and Ms. Shahlo Abdurahimova, Secretary General of the National Commission of the Republic of Tajikistan for UNESCO. The closing ceremony was attended by Mr. Mirzoshohruh Asrori, Minister of Culture of the Republic of Tajikistan. It was emphasized that since the ratification of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (17 August 2010) Tajikistan is paying special attention to the preservation of ICH at the national level. In particular, the programme for the preservation of ICH till 2015 was developed and approved by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Tajikistan.

Mr. Yuri Peshkov, UNESCO Almaty Culture Specialist, stated that the 2003 Convention is designed to ensure respect for the intangible cultural heritage and to highlight its importance. The Convention obliges States to take necessary measures to ensure the protection of intangible cultural heritage and promote cooperation at regional and international levels.

Ms. Sabira Soltongeldieva, a UNESCO consultant for the implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH, stated that the training was aimed at improving the understanding and use of practical mechanisms for implementing the Convention at the national level. These include for example, the creation of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) lists, the inclusion of intangible cultural heritage elements in the Convention’s nomination lists, as well as strengthening international cooperation. The training emphasized the need to enhance the role of the government, NGOs, communities and media in the identification, inventory and preservation of ICH.

In 2013, in Tajikistan, two more training sessions are planned on how to prepare nomination papers for inclusion in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, as well as for the identification, documentation and inventory of intangible cultural heritage.

Many ICH elements in Cambodia are in danger of disappearing, mainly due to the long-lasting conflicts, the declining number of ICH practitioners and lack of interest from the younger generation. Having ratified the 2003 Convention, the Cambodian Government has expressed its commitment to identify ICH elements still being practiced and to safeguard them for future generations. To this end, UNESCO will assist the Cambodian Government in strengthening its institutional and policy frameworks for safeguarding ICH, and on building the national capacity for the effective implementation of the 2003 Convention.

Since January 2012, five meetings were conducted by the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts to prepare and finalize a national work plan for the implementation of the 2003 Convention. Translation of the 2003 Convention and its Operational Directives are currently being undertaken, in preparation for the first capacity building workshop on the implementation of the 2003 Convention at the national level, which will take place from 13-17 August 2012. The initial workshop will be followed by a workshop on community-based inventory (February 2013) and a workshop on the preparation of nomination files in August 2013. Project activities will also include the documentation, inventorying and transmission of Sbek Thom (Shadow Puppet Theatre) traditions from the masters to the younger generation.

La Oficina de la UNESCO en Quito acogió los días 26 y 27 de julio 2012 el taller de fortalecimiento de capacidades en la implementación de la Convención 2003 para la Salvaguardia del Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial, dirigido a funcionarios del Instituto Metropolitano de Patrimonio Cultural de Quito.

Con su participación en este taller, los trabajadores municipales cuentan con nuevas herramientas y conocimientos para incluir en su trabajo medidas encaminadas a garantizar la salvaguardia, difusión y promoción del patrimonio inmaterial del área metropolitana.

La sesión de entrenamiento estuvo a cargo del Sr. Fabián Bedón y contó con la colaboración del Instituto Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural (INPC) de Ecuador. La institución realizó una presentación sobre la salvaguardia del patrimonio cultura inmaterial en el país. Las presentaciones sobre casos prácticos en Ecuador y el proceso de presentación de candidaturas para la Lista Representativa del Patrimonio Cultural Inmaterial de la UNESCO fueron incluidos.

Birthplace of Egyptian civilization, the Nile is still a lifeline for many communities living along its banks. The encounter between man and the river’s ecosystem has uncovered a rich and diversified intangible cultural heritage. Over the next six months, between July and December 2012, this heritage will be the focus of a pilot inventorying activity in the governorate of Damietta.

This initiative is part of Phase III of the MedLiHer -Mediterranean Living Heritage – project co-financed by the European Union and UNESCO, which aims at promoting the implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.

Community members and others responsible for culture at the national and local level, including researchers and NGOs will benefit from extensive training on the concept of community-based inventorying under the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage; the training will cover the role of different stakeholders in the process and the tools and techniques of participatory documentation.

The workshop is intended primarily for field researchers and communities whose intangible heritage will be inventoried. It will start with a “theoretical” component in which the methodological framework for the inventory will be collectively developed, followed by a field practicum.

This inventory work will concentrate on identifying and involving bearers (individuals, groups or communities) of intangible heritage, focusing significantly on its present social functions and challenges for transmission to future generations.

The workshop will be facilitated jointly by Mr Mostafa Gad and Mr Ismail Ali El Fihail, both belonging to the network of facilitators trained by UNESCO as part of its strategy of capacity building for the implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The methodologies developed during this pilot exercise could then be applied on a wider scale to other regions of the Nile.

All data collected will be systematized and digitized. Moreover, a film and a photographic exhibition will make this inventory experience available to the Egyptian and international public.