The Center of Cultural Heritage of Mongolia will hold a four-day workshop from 24 to 27 October 2016 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to train cultural policy decision-makers on the digitization of inventory of intangible cultural heritage as part of the directive for the implementation of the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.
An expert in digitization from China will conduct the training of over 50 provincial officers from all 21 provinces in Mongolia on techniques and methods to transfer the present database of intangible heritage from the current analogue format into a digital one.
The workshop is being organized in partnership with the Mongolian National Commission for UNESCO and eight other national facilitators and is based on the current needs of the existing National Inventory and human capacity in Mongolia.
The aim is to offer effective safeguarding of the living heritage of Mongolia, through the digitization of the inventory which has been recommended to conform to the UNESCO framework for inventorying and furthermore to establish a facility of experts to be mobilized in the future for additional training needs and for providing guidance at the provincial and local level in conducting and digitizing inventories.
This activity follows capacity-building efforts carried out within the framework of the UNESCO/Japan Funds-in-Trust project ‘Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage through Strengthening National Capacities in Asia and the Pacific’ and its specific activities in Mongolia on implementation of the 2003 Convention (2012), community-based inventorying (2013), elaboration of nomination files (2015) and most recently on the preparation of safeguarding plans (2016).
In particular, lessons learned from UNESCO-accredited facilitators in the past trainings will be applied utilizing contextualized UNESCO materials and emphasizing the social function, cultural meaning and viability of intangible cultural heritage elements, as the existing registry focuses rather on individual practitioners. This approach is aimed at facilitating the consolidation of inventories, documentation at the provincial level and access for local communities and national authorities.