21 June 2010
Meeting of the working group of the Committee (5.COM 4.WG)
By its decision 4.COM 19 (English|French), adopted at its fourth meeting in Abu Dhabi in November 2009, the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage had created an intergovernmental working group open to the participation by all States Parties, to consider, on the basis of the experience of the first cycle of implementation of the Convention, improvements that could be made to the Operational Directives for the implementation of the Convention.
Following its two meetings during the fourth session of the Committee, this group met again on 21 May 2010. To prepare the debates of the working group, the Secretariat organized an expert meeting on 15 March 2010 (distributed documents, the report and accounts of their proceedings are available online).
At its meeting on 21 May (distributed documents are available online) the working group has identified a number of possible improvements in the working methods of the Committee, the Subsidiary Body and the Secretariat.
To progress with its discussions, the working group established a restricted working group composed of Belgium, Italy, Estonia, Colombia, Saint Lucia, China, Japan, the India, Kenya and Morocco. This restricted group met on Tuesday, 1 June 2010 and agreed on a consensus text of proposed amendments to the Operational Directives as proposed in the document ITH/10/5.COM 4.WG/1 (English|French).
This consensus document from the restricted working group will be submitted to the working group at its meeting on Monday, 21 June 2010, in Room II (Fontenoy), 10 am to 6 pm. The results of this meeting, again open to all States Parties, will be submitted to a working group that the Committee proposed to the General Assembly to establish in order to report to the General Assembly of the States Parties to the Convention at its third session of 22 to 24 June 2010.