UNESCO’s key partners, steadfast in their support over recent years to the effective implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, met with the Secretariat on 30 March 2012 to take stock of recent achievements and lessons learnt and share information on future priorities and the overall strategy for utilizing available resources.

Thanks to the support of generous donors including Azerbaijan, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, the European Union, Flanders (Belgium), Italy, Japan, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Spain and the United Arab Emirates, more than $US11 million have been mobilized for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage through a global capacity-building effort.
Since 2008 UNESCO has striven to align the programmes funded by voluntary contributions to its Complementary Additional Programme with the priorities and strategies of the Regular Programme funded by the assessed contributions of all UNESCO’s Member States.

In line with these efforts, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Section has focused its resource mobilization strategy very strictly during the past three years on a two-pronged approach: i) to support a global capacity-building programme to accompany States in building human and institutional capacities for the successful implementation of the Convention; ii) to enhance its own capacities to respond better to the demands of States and assist the Intergovernmental Committee in fulfilling its work.

The meeting provided an opportunity to consolidate a network of faithful donors to the 2003 Convention, to build synergies and discuss possible avenues for future collaboration to allow the best possible use of the complementary contributions and assets of our donors and partners.

• List of participants: English