The Committee,

1. Recalling Chapter I of the Operational Directives,
2. Having examined Document ITH/13/8.COM/7 and the files submitted by the respective States Parties,
3. Expresses its appreciation with the work of the Consultative Body and the present report and thanks its members for their efforts;
4. Expresses its further satisfaction that developing countries continue to submit a significant number of files, particularly those in Africa;
5. Invites States Parties to take careful heed of the experience gained from previous cycles when preparing files, and to respond to the decisions and suggestions of the Committee and its bodies during their examination of all nominations; and requests the Secretariat to make available regularly a revised and updated version of Document ITH/13/8.COM/INF.7 to facilitate access to such past experience;
6. Further invites States Parties to submit files providing all of the information needed for their proper evaluation and examination;
7. Encourages States Parties to put the communities, groups and, if applicable, individuals concerned at the centre of all safeguarding measures and plans, to avoid top-down approaches and to identify solutions that emerge from the communities, groups and, if applicable, individuals themselves;
8. Encourages States Parties when designing safeguarding measures in the framework of the nomination process to mobilize all actors involved in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage and not to limit themselves to those in the culture sector;
9. Notes with concern the limited number of nominations to the Urgent Safeguarding List, proposals to the Register of Best Safeguarding Practices and requests for International Assistance, as well as the more limited number of successful files; reaffirms the importance of the capacity-building strategy and of the assistance of the Secretariat; and encourages States Parties to make fuller use of these opportunities for international cooperation available under the Convention;
10. Encourages the Secretariat to pursue its capacity-building efforts around the world, while recognizing that such efforts constitute an investment whose results will be most evident in the longer term and further recognizing that technical assistance to States Parties may be appropriate in the shorter term;
11. Decides, on an experimental basis and in conformity with the Operational Directives, to create an integrated mechanism permitting States Parties to simultaneously nominate an element for inscription on the Urgent Safeguarding List and request International Assistance from the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund to finance the proposed safeguarding plan, and requests the Secretariat to create a combined ICH-01 and ICH-04 form accordingly and to report at its tenth session on the implementation of this mechanism.