UNESCO Multisectoral Office, Abuja in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Culture organizes the final stakeholders’ meeting leading to the end of the implementation process of the project “Safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage of Nigeria through an integrated approach”. The objective of the meeting is to share the inventory reports from the three communities involved (Bida, Calabar and Oyo), with the stakeholders. In addition, the Independent Evaluator will present findings on the project implementation with recommendations for future actions to ensure the sustainability of the results of the project.

About fifty participants from government Ministries, Agencies, Civil Society, culture related Non-Governmental Organizations would participate at the meeting. Dignitaries expected at the meeting include the Ambassador of Japan in Nigeria, Ambassador of Indonesia and the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea. Others diginataries would include representatives from some United Nations Agencies, ECOWAS and British Council.

Training of trainers workshop for the European chapter of the global facilitators’ network

In the context of the global capacity-building programme for the effective implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the workshop intends to expand the regional chapter of the programme’s facilitators’ network and strengthen its delivery capacity to respond to capacity-building needs in European and, in particular, Eastern European countries. UNESCO is organizing the workshop thanks to the generous support of the Regional Centre for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in South-Eastern Europe in Sofia, Bulgaria, and the funds from the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund.

The training content and methodology will take into account recommendations of the recent global programme strategy meeting held in Bangkok in March 2017. The strategy meeting highlighted the need for a stronger focus on strengthening institutional capacities at national level, the development of national networks of trainers and consideration of the changing role of facilitators, which has evolved from delivering training workshops to providing advisors, acting as mediators and as resource persons concerning all matters related to the implementation of the Convention.

Accordingly, the Sofia training workshop will: 1) analyse the lessons learned to date from implementing UNESCO’s global capacity-building programme in Europe; 2) strengthen participants’ knowledge and competencies required to be a facilitator in the network; 3) provide hands-on experience using the UNESCO capacity-building curriculum, including the recently developed materials on elaborating safeguarding plans.

Documents

• Background Note: English
• List of participants: English
• Programme: English
• Workshop objectives: English in preparation
• The UNESCO Capacity-Building Programme : English in preparation
• The Convention with a focus on the European context: English in preparation

As part of the project “Support to the Effective Implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Nigeria” UNESCO’s Abuja Regional office in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture is organizing a workshop on the preparation of nomination files to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List. Participants will be selected from the Nigeria’s Ministry of Information and Culture. They will be equipped with the capacity to prepare nomination files for inscription on the Urgent Safeguarding List (USL) and the Representative List (RL) as well as the preparation of requests for international assistance for safeguarding purposes.

The forthcoming capacity building workshop is part of UNESCO’s extrabudgetary projects generously supported by Japan Fund-in-Trust (J-FIT), in view to contribute to the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage in Nigeria.

Strengthening the implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage: sub-regional training workshop for facilitators from Central Asia

This training workshop is designed to equip a group of resource persons from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with the knowledge and tools required to conduct training workshops for the effective implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Central Asia. UNESCO is organizing the training in the context of the Convention’s global capacity-building programme and as a follow-up to a previous three-year capacity-building project implemented by UNESCO in the four above-mentioned countries. The training workshop is made possible thanks to the generous support of the International Training Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (CRIHAP) and collaboration with the National Commission of the Kyrgyz Republic for UNESCO.

The workshop intends to familiarise a core group of resource persons from the benefitting countries with the content and pedagogic approaches of some of the themes covered in the capacity-building curriculum developed by UNESCO on the implementation of the Convention at national level. It will also provide an opportunity for participants to interact with experienced facilitators on lessons learnt so far from implementing UNESCO’s global strategy, specifically with regard to Central Asia.

Documents

• Programme/ Программа: English|Russian
• Workshop Note/ Информационная записка: English|Russian
• Overview of participants answers to survey / Обзор ответов участников на опрос: English|Russian
• Introduction of the 2003 Convention and its capacity-building programme/ Представление Конвенции 2003 года и его программы по укреплению потенциала: English|Russian
• Key concepts of the Convention/ Основные понятия Конвенции: English|Russian
• Capacity-building curriculum – contents, pedagogy and the role of facilitators/ Учебная программа по укреплению потенциала - содержание, педагогика и фасилитация: English|Russian
• Identification and inventorying/ Идентификация и инвентаризация : English|Russian
• Gender and intangible cultural heritage/ Гендер и нематериальное культурное наследие: English|Russian
• Introduction of the workshop on developing safeguarding plans/ Введение в семинар по разработке планов охраны: English|Russian
• Nominations in the capacity-building curriculum/ Номинации в учебной программе по укреплению потенциала: English|Russian
• International assistance requests in the capacity-building curriculum/ Заявки на международную помощь в учебной программе по укреплению потенциала: English|Russian
• ICH and sustainable development/ НКН и устойчивое развитие: English|Russian

The capacity-building project to safeguard Guatemala’s intangible cultural heritage (ICH) continued with a training workshop on community-based inventorying that took place in Guatemala City and in Santa Apolonia from 5 to 11 June.

Organized in cooperation with Guatemala’s Vice Ministry of Natural and Cultural Heritage, the two main objectives of the workshop were to strengthen the institutional and human capacities of the western municipalities to define and identify the intangible cultural heritage present in their territory and to establish the technical capacities required to implement a pilot project on inventorying, with the participation of the local communities and non-governmental organizations.

Divided into two sections, one theoretical and one practical, the training on the basic concepts of inventorying was held in Guatemala, while the practical exercises in the field took place in the municipality of Santa Apolonia, Chimaltenango. Participants had the opportunity to perform participatory observations of local ICH elements and record them, such as the ´Torito´s dance´, local culinary traditions, weaving techniques and ceramic production.

The Intangible Cultural Heritage Section is developing new partnerships with relevant educational institutions in the context of the next quadrennial UNESCO programme (2018–2021). To this end it organized an intersectoral meeting on ‘Integrating intangible cultural heritage in education’ from 17 to 19 May 2017 at UNESCO Headquarters, which brought together 40 colleagues working in education and in intangible cultural heritage at the UNESCO Education Institutes, in Field Offices and at Headquarters.

Participants discussed the interface between intangible cultural heritage and education with special reference to the Sustainable Development Goal, Target 4.7 on learning for the ‘promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development’ to achieve Goal 4 on quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all.

They shared concrete project experiences from Latina America, Africa and Asia and the Pacific on how to promote transmission and safeguarding of integrating intangible cultural heritage through all forms of education (formal, non-formal and informal). Collectively, they generated ideas for future action, including operational projects, the joint development of conceptual frameworks, policy guidance and monitoring.

The meeting was a milestone in building new partnerships between the Education and Culture Sectors.

Documents

• Meeting report: English|French
• Provisional meeting agenda: English in preparation

This workshop will provide fundamental principles and practical information on community-based inventorying, using UNESCO’s capacity-building material as a guide. The first 6 days will be ‘classroom’ style training activities aimed at conveying the essential features of inventorying under the 2003 Convention as well as developing inventory framework, and technical skills in identification and documentation. The last 4 days will be field-based practicum, carrying out inventorying work in small groups in three or four field locations. Participants will then return to the classroom to focus on organizing the data collected from the field work and to exchange experiences and consolidate their newly acquired skills.

A minimum of 25 participants is expected to participate in the workshop; five national cultural officers, five district cultural officers and 15 community members who are themselves the bearers of heritage.

The training workshop will be facilitated by one UNESCO-trained international facilitator and supported by a national expert with some knowledge of intangible heritage who will have participated in previous training workshops on safeguarding cultural heritage.

A new capacity-building project has been launched, thanks to the generous contribution of the Government of Azerbaijan. The project continues the efforts to implement the main principles of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Guatemala´s institutional structures and local social organizations.

A capacity-building workshop on the implementation of the 2003 Convention at the national level was held in Guatemala City from 3 to 7 April 2017. This marked the beginning of a series of activities being organized in close cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Guatemala throughout 2017.
The workshop involved municipal personnel from several localities of Guatemala, personnel from the Ministry, as well as representatives of civil society and communities that act as the bearers of intangible cultural heritage.

This first activity aimed to raise awareness among local and national actors about the principles, scope and objectives of the Convention, with a view to highlighting its effectiveness as a tool to guarantee the continuity of living heritage.

Within the framework of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Section’s Global strategy on strengthening national capacities to safeguard intangible cultural heritage, the Section is organizing a strategy meeting with facilitators from 6 to 9 March 2017 in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Culture Unit of the UNESCO Bangkok Office.

Purpose:
In the process of developing the next quadrennial UNESCO programme (2018 to 2022), and in light of the latest developments in the implementation of the Convention, this workshop will intend to involve facilitators in vision building and strategic thinking about the future of the Convention’s global capacity-building programme and the facilitators’ network.

Main objectives:
1. Consolidate facilitators’ perspectives on the relevance and future potential of the capacity-building programme;
2. Assess the evolution, effects and potential of the global facilitators’ network;
3. Develop ideas and recommendations for the future of the programme and the network.

Participants:
The meeting will bring together about 30 participants, mainly UNESCO-trained facilitators involved in delivering capacity-building services as well as Field Office colleagues in the Culture Sector, and a team from the Intangible Cultural Heritage Section. The participants also include observers from Category 2 centres working on capacity building.

Documents

• Agenda of the Meeting : English|French
• Concept note: English|French
• Cross-regional Analysis of Facilitators’ Reports: English|French
• Facilitators survey results report: English|French
• Final report - Envisioning the future of the global capacity-building programme and its facilitators’ network - Strategy meeting with facilitators: English|French
• Information Note: English|French

This workshop is an activity of a two-year (2014-2016) project financed by UNESCO/Japan Fund-in-Trust, to support effective implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Nigeria. The objective of the workshop is to develop the capacities of the local community members through community-based inventorying training.

The workshop was facilitated by UNESCO-trained facilitator Silverse Anami and national facilitator Professor G.G Darah.

A similar workshop was held in Calabar from 10-14 October 2016 and Oyo from 14 – 18 November 2016.