The Committee,

1. Recalling Article 16 of the Convention,
2. Further recalling paragraphs 2, 13, 17 and 25 to 32 of the Operational Directives as revised by the General Assembly at its third session in June 2010 concerning inscription on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity,
3. Having examined Document ITH/10/5.COM/CONF.202/6 and the nomination files submitted by the respective States Parties,
4. Welcoming the contributions that some States Parties are envisaging in order to implement the capacity building strategy in developing countries, particularly in Africa, aiming, inter alia, at facilitating the submission of a larger number of nominations from Africa,
5. Requests the Secretariat, in collaboration with States Parties, to ensure that a baseline survey, amongst the States Parties, is conducted to obtain feedback that would help to identify the specific challenges that States and communities may be having, which inhibit them from submitting nominations of their intangible cultural heritage elements for inscription on the relevant lists;
6. Recalls the importance of the implementation of paragraphs 117 and 149 of the Operational Directives concerning the protection and the use of the Convention’s emblem and invites the States Parties to take all the necessary measures in order to avoid any commercial misappropriation of inscribed elements, in particular of generic elements covering several domains, through the use of the Convention’s emblem for purposes of commercial instrumentalization and branding;
7. Requests the Secretariat to propose, for its sixth session, in light of the debate of the Committee, guidelines for the treatment of correspondence received by the Secretariat from the public or other concerned parties concerning nominations, and for their prior communication to the submitting States;
8. Further requests the Secretariat to propose, for its sixth session, an information-sharing mechanism through which States Parties may make known their intentions to submit nominations, so as to encourage, where relevant, the submission of multi-national nominations;
9. Invites States Parties to ensure that, in case of proposals of elements containing references to war or conflict or specific historical events, the nomination file should be elaborated with utmost care, in order to avoid provoking misunderstanding among communities in any way, with a view to encouraging dialogue and mutual respect among communities, groups and individuals.