Events and meetings on intangible cultural heritage (co-)organized by UNESCO

This body, established by the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage at its third session in November 2008, composed by Turkey, Estonia, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates, is responsible for the examination of nominations for inscription on the Representative List in 2009 and 2010.
It will meet in private session.

As a follow-up to the sub-regional meeting in the Pacific on the 2003 Convention (Nadi, Fiji, December 2007), UNESCO is organizing a series of national consultation meetings to assist Pacific Member States in the ratification and implementation of the 2003 Convention. The Tongan inter-departmental meeting is the third national consultation meeting organized in 2008, following those of Papua New Guinea (Port Moresby, 18-19 March 2008) and Fiji (Suva, 21-22 May 2008).

The meeting is aimed at providing governmental officers in different departments with information and assistance that might contribute to the ratification and implementation of the 2003 Convention. Legislation, programmes and activities related to the safeguarding of Tonga’s intangible heritage will be shared among the participants.

The meeting will be organized immediately after the Second Pacific meeting on the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which is also held in Tonga from 2 to 4 December 2008, and will be attended by representatives from most of the Pacific States.

Contact in Apia office: E. Waterman, UNESCO Apia

The meeting was aimed at reinforcing capacities among governmental decision-makers in the Pacific for developing measures and policies for the safeguarding of their intangible cultural heritage. Governmental representatives from all Pacific States have been invited to attend.

As a way to give a follow-up to the first Pacific meeting on the Convention(Nadi, Fiji, December 2007 ), the participants were informed about the latest developments on the Convention, which is fully operational since June 2008. Moreover, they were be informed about the procedures followed by Papua New Guinea to ratify the Convention as well as of other activities in the field of intangible heritage carried out by UNESCO in the Pacific in 2008.

The meeting was be followed by a Tongan national consultation meeting on the Convention on 5 December 2008.

Documents:

• Programme: English
• Speeches:
  • Welcome address by the Director of the UNESCO Apia Office, Dr Visesio Pongi: English
  • Keynote address by the Honourable Minister of Education, Women Affairs and Culture, Dr Tevita H. Palefau: English
  • Remarks by the Representative of the Government of Japan, Mr Akira Ouchi: English
• Presentations:
  • Ms Emily Waterman on the Lakalaka: English
  • Mr Paul Salmond Assistant Secretary of Literature and Indigenous Culture, Department of Environment, Water, Heritage & the Arts, Canberra, Australia: English
• List of participants: English
• Report: English

Contact in Apia office: E. Waterman, UNESCO Apia

The 1.5-day National Capacity-Building Workshop on the implementation of the 2003 Convention was held in Maputo, Mozambique. The workshop was a follow-up to the workshop on ICH inventorying held in July 2007 in Maputo for Lusophone African states.

Fifteen national researchers and cultural officers from various provinces of Mozambique participated. Drawing upon the ICH inventory template that they themselves developed during the 2007 workshop, they worked on filling in the template using some examples of ICH from provinces.

At the end of the workshop, the participants decided to review once again the template and communicate to each other any necessary modification. Once the template is revised in the coming weeks, they are to start inventorying ICH in their respective provinces. They are to organize a debriefing workshop to exchange their experiences and further improve ICH inventorying methodologies.

• Meeting venue: Hotel Mozambique, Maputo, Mozambique
• Agenda (Portuguese)
• List of Participants : available soon
• Report of the Capacity-Building Workshop of July 2007 (Portuguese)
• ICH inventorying exercise (Portuguese)
• PPT presentation (English)

Contact in the UNESCO Office in Maputo: Ofelia Da Silva (o.da-silva@unesco.org)

This workshop, the last of a series of three targeting African states, aimed at informing all African States Parties to the 2003 Convention about recent developments concerning operational aspects of the Convention (c.f. paragraph 04007 of UNESCO 34C/5), more in particular the preparation of nomination files for the Lists of the Convention and of requests for international assistance.

The workshop took place immediately following the second session of the General Assembly of the States Parties to the Convention (16 -19 June 2008), which approved the Operational Directives (e.g., selection criteria, calendar of ICH listings)—that the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage has prepared over the last 16 months.

The workshop was financed both by the UNESCO regular programme and the Government of Norway within the framework of the UNESCO/Norway Funds-in-Trust.

• Meeting venue: Room XII (Fontenoy), UNESCO Headquarters, Paris
• Agenda: English|French
• List of Participants: English-French
• Report: English|French

An information meeting for the States Parties to the Convention will be held on Monday 2 June 2008 from 15.30 to 18.00 in Room XI (Fontenoy) in preparation for the second session of the General Assembly.

The purpose of this meeting opened by the Director-General is to present the principal activities and decisions of the four sessions of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage organized since the first session of the General Assembly of the States Parties to the Convention in June 2006. Member States of UNESCO not party to the Convention and Observer delegations are cordially invited to attend to this information meeting as observers.

• Background notes (English|French)
• Speech of Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO (English)

The objective of the inter-departmental meeting is to bring together all Fijian governmental actors involved in the ratification procedure of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. As a follow-up to the sub-regional meeting in the Pacific on the 2003 Convention (Nadi, Fiji, December 2007), UNESCO is organizing a series of national consultation meetings to assist Pacific Member States in the ratification and implementation of the 2003 Convention. The inter-departmental meeting held in Fiji is the second national consultation meeting, following the one held in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, on 18 and 19 March 2008.

The meeting is aimed at providing governmental officers in different departments with information and assistance that might contribute to the ratification of the 2003 Convention, and support Fiji’s participation at the international level in the implementation of the Convention, in particular through the submission of intangible heritage elements for inscription on the lists of the Convention and the submission of international assistance requests.

• Agenda (English)
• List of participants (English)
• Presentations:
  • National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage - Cultural Mapping, by Ro Misiwaini Qereqeretabua, Director Institute of Fijian Language and Culture (English)

Contact in UNESCO Apia Office: Mali Voi

A sub-regional workshop on the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) - www.unesco.org/culture/ich - took place in Bamako (Mali) from 19 to 20 May 2008. It followed the sub-regional meetings organized by UNESCO in November and December 2006 in Douala (Cameroon) and Dakar (Senegal).

Considering the growing interest for the Convention, the rapid development of its implementation and the fact that many States Parties to the Convention have already started preparing nomination files for inscription on the Lists of Intangible Heritage, it was considered timely to organize a workshop whose objective is to promote the Convention among African Non-States Parties, or in which the ratification process is underway, and to put emphasis on the various aspects of the implementation of this normative instrument.

Among others, the following themes were debated:

• the objectives of the 2003 Convention
• the rights and obligations of States Parties to the Convention
• the mechanisms of the Convention
• inventorying intangible cultural heritage
• the safeguarding measures of the intangible cultural heritage
• the inscription of elements of the intangible cultural heritage on the Lists

Documents:

• Background document (English|French)
• Agenda (English|French)
• Participants (English-French)

Contact in the UNESCO Office in Bamako: Vincent Seck (v.seck@unesco.org)