This workshop aims at gaining the support of communities, groups and individuals custodians of intangible cultural heritage to the principles of the 2003 Convention by providing the necessary tools for its understanding and ‘ownership’.

The specific objectives of the meeting are:

• to provide an overview of the 2003 Convention: its objectives, key concepts, and commitments to respect national and international cooperation mechanisms;
• to lay the groundwork necessary for a thorough understanding of key concepts of intangible cultural heritage and the arsenal of preventive measures listed by the Convention;
• to share past and ongoing experiences of safeguarding intangible heritage;
• to propose practical guidance for developing backup plans;
• to assist in the establishment of a Gabonese National Committee for Cultural Heritage.

Contact in UNESCO Libreville: Ms Yvette Kaboza

With the support of the European Union, UNESCO has launched the “Mediterranean Living Heritage Project (MedLiHer) ” to support the implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic, with the participation of the Maison des Cultures du Monde (France).

The project’s overall objective is long-term capacity-building for implementation of the Convention in the Mediterranean countries, in particular by developing national safeguarding projects and supporting the participation of States Parties in international mechanisms. The action is also intended to improve regional cooperation and exchange of skills/experience by establishing a network of institutions and developing a web portal with a database.

MedLiHer is co-funded by the European Union through Euromed Heritage, a program which aims at contributing to mutual understanding and dialogue between cultures throughout the Mediterranean region by promoting its cultural heritage. Euromed Heritage 4 (2008-2012) creates new opportunities to increase people’s awareness and provide them with a sense of appropriation of their extraordinary common cultural heritage.

See dedicated webpage

The project was implemented by conducting a series of pilot ICH inventory-making activities, on a grassroots level, in six beneficiary Sub-Saharan African countries, namely Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Uganda, Swaziland and Zambia. It was composed of four phases:

1. Phase I dealt with the selection of six pilot communities (one in each country) in a demand-driven manner;
2. Phase II was the initial capacity-building training workshops that took place in all six abovementioned countries;
3. Phase III included several months of fieldwork involving the selected communities and cultural officers to inventory ICH; and
4. Phase IV was follow-up sessions that were organized to evaluate the quality of exercises and improve methodologies.

Several achievements that are commonly shared by the six participating countries:

• Awareness about the concept of intangible cultural heritage, the 2003 Convention, as well as the importance of ICH in society was raised;
• The capacity of the communities, government institutions and civil society was built and they were encouraged to support intangible cultural heritage safeguarding and inventorying;
• Capacity in inventorying and other ICH safeguarding measures was reinforced among national and regional cultural officers and members of the communities;
• Measures for continued safeguarding and inventorying at national and community levels were devised;
• The traditional leadership was very much involved as some helped with resources which showed how welcoming they were as they also gave vital information. This made it possible for the field workers to work freely within the communities;
• The involvement of youths was recognized during the inventorying exercises.

The project aim was to organize a five-day pilot training workshop, providing practical and technical skills in preparation of nomination files. The workshop targeted five participants from each of the two main beneficiary countries (Namibia and Lesotho) and one from each of the additional countries: Swaziland, Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe with the training course materials were developed by the facilitator from South Africa, Dr. Harriet Deacon

The project achieved satisfactory results, including:

• The efficiency of the designed training module was tested during the workshop;
• The training workshop on preparing nomination files was a success;
• Participants gained increased knowledge of the Convention and understood better the importance of involving communities in the process of preparing nomination files;
• Practical participatory session provided by the facilitator helped the participants to understand the actual work involved in filling out the nomination files, thus led to Lesotho to submit a nomination file for an element entitled ‘Letsema’.
• The training evaluation by participants was done at the end of the workshop;
• Awareness about the concept and importance of the Intangible Cultural Heritage as well as the 2003 Convention raised in the respective countries.

This project aimed at strengthening capacity-building for the Implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, raising awareness with regard to the use of mappings and increasing knowledge on the revitalization of intangible cultural heritage.

The projects included the organization of a series of sub-regional workshops, one in South America (Peru) and three in Central America (Panama and El Salvador), to reinforce institutional capacities to implement the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Through these workshops, the following results have been achieved:

• Raising awareness on the ratification and observance of the 2003 Convention;
• Appropriation of methodologies for approaching the safeguarding measures set out in the 2003 Convention;
• Positioning the issue of the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage in the political agenda of the region;
• Fostering the institutionalization of committees on the intangible cultural heritage.