Decision of the Intergovernmental Committee: 10.COM 9

The Committee,

  1. Having examined document ITH/15/10.COM/9 and its annexes,
  2. Recalling Article 25.5 of the Convention and Chapter II of the Operational Directives,
  3. Further recalling Decisions 7.COM 18, 8.COM 12 and 9.COM 7,
  4. Commends the National Commission of the People’s Republic of China for its generous offer of a voluntary supplementary contribution to the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund to support the organization in 2016 of a preliminary meeting of experts to lay the foundation upon which an overall results framework of the Convention could be constructed;
  5. Accepts with gratitude the generous contribution of the National Commission of the People’s Republic of China, approves its specific purpose and requests the Secretariat to ensure the proper organization of the expert meeting;
  6. Expresses its concern on the non-receipt of new voluntary supplementary contributions to the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund to support the programmatic framework of the 2014-2017 Complementary Additional Programme entitled ‘Strengthening capacities to safeguard intangible cultural heritage for sustainable development’ since its last session while noting the commitment of the Government of Catalonia (Spain) to offer a contribution to further support Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia within this scope;
  7. Acknowledges the significant and pioneering support that Norway provided to the global capacity-building strategy while regretting that the supplementary voluntary contribution accepted in 2012 was reduced by 5%;
  8. Takes note that Brazil and Viet Nam have to date, not been able to honour the offers that it approved in 2013 and invites them to inform the Secretariat of the status of these outstanding contributions at the earliest opportunity;
  9. Further takes note that States, as well as other entities, have made use of different forms of support, financial or in-kind, such as earmarked supplementary voluntary contributions to the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund or to the sub-fund for enhancing the human capacities of the Secretariat, Funds-in-Trust, appropriations to the Regular Programme or loaned personnel;
  10. Thanks all the contributors that have generously supported the Convention and its Secretariat, since its last session, namely the Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority, Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Catalonia (Spain), China, Japan, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Heritage Centre (United Arab Emirates) and the Association for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (Italy);
  11. Encourages other contributors to consider the possibility of supporting the Convention, in particular through the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund, while inviting them to disburse their contribution on time and therefore shorten as much as possible the time lapse between their offer and the payment of the announced contributions, thus allowing for smooth and timely implementation of activities;
  12. Requests the Secretariat to report, at its eleventh session, on the progress of implementation of any voluntary supplementary contributions it may have received since its last session.

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