With the support of the UNESCO/Japan Fund-in-Trust, UNESCO initiates on 16 April 2012 its efforts on the implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Nepal, who ratified the Convention in 2010. A series of workshops will be organized to strengthen the national capacities in Nepal to implement the Convention more effectively for over the next 18 months. Among them, the first five-day workshop was held on 16-20 April 2012 in the capital city, Kathmandu, mainly focusing on building capacity for Nepal to meet its obligation as a State Party to the Convention.

UNESCO Office in Kathmandu works in close cooperation with the Ministry of Federal Affairs, Constituant Assembly, Parliamentary Affairs and Culture for this first joint initiative, which attracted some 40 participants from government departments, communities and groups that create and transmit the intangible cultural heritages. The other workshops to follow are on Community-based inventorying of intangible cultural heritage and elaborating nominations to the Lists of the Convention. These series of initiatives is implemented within the framework of a global capacity building strategy that UNESCO put in place since 2011.