Objectives:
With a view to contribute to the international debate on safeguarding living heritage in urban contexts with links to sustainable development, the project intends to:
• identify key issues related to ICH and its safeguarding in urban contexts, including the potential contribution of intangible cultural heritage and its safeguarding to sustainable development of urban areas;
• develop a methodology for inventorying living heritage in urban contexts and update the existing/develop new materials for inventorying, including a specific guidance note, if relevant, based on the lessons learnt from the nine pilot projects;
• develop policy oriented recommendations related to ICH safeguarding in urban contexts.

Implementation strategy:
Within the framework of the overall project, and in line with approaches and conceptual tools of the 2003 Convention, nine pilot inventories of intangible cultural heritage in urban contexts will be conducted in selected cities from different regions of the world.
The inventories will target in particular practices, which are based on economic mechanisms that are key to sustainable development of communities, with a particular focus on practices where the economic base has been eroded and could be revitalized. The project will specifically focus on traditional crafts, performing arts, including festivals The pilot cities will be selected based on interest expressed by communities and in synergy with ongoing activities and strategies as part of the implementation of the 2003 Convention.
To facilitate the active participation of tradition bearers and practitioners in the design and implementation of the inventories, capacity building workshops on community based inventorying will be delivered by UNESCO trained facilitators. The workshops and their training materials will be developed based on the existing training materials, developed by UNESCO under the 2003 Conventions’ Global capacity-building programme. Accompanied by the facilitators, the communities trained will conduct pilot inventories over a period of 6 months. A wrap-up workshop will be organized at the end of this period to collect lessons learnt, discuss issues related to ICH in cities and sustainable development, and formulate proposals for improving the existing inventorying methodologies and materials and draft policy recommendations.
The project will be implemented in two phases:
Phase one: October 2018 to July 2019

• Kick off meeting: 22 and 23 October 2018, UNESCO HQs in Paris
  
• Implementation of three inventories (George Town, Malaysia; Harare, Zimbabwe and Kingston, Jamaica) : November 2018 to May 2019
  
• Wrap-up meeting of Phase one: June/July 2019
  

Phase two: July 2019 to May 2020

• Kick off meeting: June/July 2019
  
• Implementation of six inventories (TBC): August 2019 – February 2020
  
• Wrap-up meeting of Phase two: March 2020
  

Wrap-up meeting of the project: In the framework of the Global Forum on ‘Culture for sustainable cities’: September/October 2020
Implementing unit: the project will be implemented by the Living Heritage Entity, in close collaboration with Culture Specialists from the relevant Field Offices.