The Committee

1. Takes note that Uganda has requested international assistance for the project entitled Inventorying the intangible cultural heritage of four communities in Uganda, described as follows:

Uganda is home to more than forty ethno-linguistic communities, each with its distinct traditions and practices. The Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development proposes to begin inventorying the intangible cultural heritage present on Uganda’s territory and to raise awareness of its importance through pilot community-based inventories in four locations. The programme will be undertaken in six phases: the establishment of a national strategy for inventorying intangible heritage; community and district consultation; capacity-building workshops on community-based inventorying; fieldwork to identify elements; compilation of four inventories; and final workshops and dissemination. The beneficiary communities will choose elements for inventorying, provide detailed information on them and prioritize those in need of urgent safeguarding. They will also identify community resource persons, opinion leaders and tradition bearers; introduce the project to the communities; review the methodology for inventory-making; identify community representatives to attend training; and select a non-governmental, community-based organization to act as local coordinator. At its end, the project will have identified elements in need of urgent safeguarding. The skills acquired by district culture officers can be utilized to train officers from other districts in inventorying intangible cultural heritage in other Ugandan communities.

2. Decides that, from the information provided in File 00557, Inventorying the intangible cultural heritage of four communities in Uganda responds as follows to the criteria for international assistance in Paragraph 12 of the Operational Directives and to the additional considerations in Paragraph 10:

A.1    The proposal lays out a central role for communities in the future implementation of the project but does not make clear how and why these four target communities are selected to participate; it is important that the communities and local partners be fully involved in the project from its earliest stages;

A.2    There are several inconsistencies in the budget regarding costs and their relation to the activities proposed, which makes it difficult to determine that the amount of assistance requested is appropriate;

A.3    The request presents a complete plan of activities aimed at designing strategies, training, community involvement and raising awareness, aiming at replicating the experience with other communities; however, the timetable is very short and does not seem likely to permit the realization of all these activities; additional information is needed on project management and the specific responsibilities of central authorities;

A.4    The lasting results of the project will include an inventory of the intangible cultural heritage of four pilot communities, a corps of trained local trainers and culture officers, and greater public awareness about intangible cultural heritage; however, it would be useful to specify the resources for the longer-term updating and subsequent stages of inventorying in other communities;

A.5    The beneficiary State Party shares the cost of the activities, but the amount it is to contribute seems rather low (below two percent of the overall budget); the State is encouraged to take into account the expected in-kind contributions from Government institutions and officials when revising the request;

A.6    An elaborate system of strengthening capacities in intangible cultural heritage inventorying is proposed by the project, which aims to empower and build the capacity of communities and district officials in identification and safeguarding; it appears that the project can be effective in raising awareness as well inventorying, within the scope of the current request as well as in the future;

A.7    The State Party has not previously received financial assistance from the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund;

10(a) The project does not imply cooperation with other countries, although it results from a regional activity supported by the UNESCO/Flanders Funds-in-Trust to strengthen capacities for community-based inventorying;

10(b) The assistance has the potential to stimulate similar efforts in other communities in Uganda, as well as local financial and technical contributions from other sources.

3. Recognizes the importance and relevance of the elaboration of an inventory, but invites the State Party to improve the methodologies to lay a more solid groundwork before the project starts and in particular to explain the choice of these four pilot communities in the context of a future expansion of the project, to reinforce the in-depth training and broad participation of the communities in the elaboration of the inventories, and in particular, to identify more clearly the technical support that this may require;
4. Encourages the State Party to review and consistently articulate the activities, budget and timetable to ensure they are mutually coherent;
5. Decides not to approve international assistance for the project Inventorying the intangible cultural heritage of four communities in Uganda in the amount of US$216,000, at this time;
6. Further invites the State Party to submit a revised request in which its nature as a pilot project is more clearly described, including greater attention to how the effort can be sustained in the future within the pilot communities and elsewhere, preferably by the end of February 2012;
7. Requests the Secretariat to work with the submitting State Party in its revision of the request;
8. Delegates to the Bureau of the Committee the authority to approve a revised request for international assistance in an amount not to exceed US$216,000, on condition that the State Party submits a revised request responding to the concerns laid out above.