The current organizational structure of the Ministry in charge of culture (Decree n  001718 / PR MCAEP of 23 December 1982 on the organization and functions of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Popular Education) provides that the body responsible for the implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage is the Direction de la Conservation du patrimoine culturel (DCPC, Directorate of Cultural Heritage Conservation) within the General Directorate of Culture. The text is currently being revised in order to create a Directorate of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
As far as training in intangible cultural heritage management is concerned, the Anthropology Department of Omar Bongo University has developed a Master’s degree entitled ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage and cultural production’ with the aim of developing greater professional capacities in this area. Capacity-building workshops have been held in Libreville for culture professionals, researchers and non-governmental organizations. These included a national workshop on the implementation mechanisms of the Convention held in 2010 for Ministry of Culture personnel as well as non-governmental organizations and institutes of culture and research; recommendations from this workshop included the creation of a National Committee for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, and strengthening the capacities of non-governmental organizations working in intangible cultural heritage. In 2011, two regional capacity-building workshops were held on training trainers and building on the capacity of non-governmental organizations to safeguard intangible cultural heritage.
No inventory of intangible cultural heritage exists as yet in Gabon. However, within the framework of the implementation of the national cultural policy, the major axes of which have recently been defined (Workshop for the development and validation of normative instruments of cultural policy in the Republic of Gabon, Libreville, from 26 to 28 September 2011), a national inventory campaign is planned. For this purpose, a legal text setting out this activity is under development for 2012.
Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage is the first of three axes of Gabon’s cultural policy. This specifically calls for certain actions: inventorying, safeguarding and promoting intangible cultural heritage; undertaking impact studies; developing national representative and urgent safeguarding lists for intangible cultural heritage; and promoting national languages.
In the area of international cooperation, a network of professionals, communities and centres of expertise is currently being created, mainly for the mvet stick zither of the Fang community, between four States of the Central African sub-region (Gabon, Cameroon, Congo and Equatorial Guinea). This is being organized under the International Centre for Bantu Civilizations (CICIBA).