Intangible Cultural

Heritage Convention:

A decade after the entry

into force.

Tenth Annual Meeting of the South-East European Experts Network on Intangible Cultural Heritage

Brač - CROATIA

14-15 June 2016

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The Convention today –

States Parties

As of 8 June 2016:

• Ratified by 168 states overall

• By all countries of SEE ICH network

• 10 out of 24 Eastern European countries have been or are Committee members

© All Rights Reserved: UNESCO/ ICH

Western Europe and

North America

21

Eastern Europe

24

Latin America and Caribbean

31

Asia and Pacific

33

Africa 41

Arab States 18

• Entered into force in 2006

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How is the Convention being

implemented at national level?

Creating a legal

and administrative

context for

safeguarding

Awareness-raising

Identifying, defining

and inventorying

living traditions

Establishing

partnerships to

safeguard the

ICH present in

territory of State

Party

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Community participation

• One of the most challenging aspects in implementation of 2003 Convention

• Only communities possess specific intangible cultural heritage – it is not the property of States, nations, humanity but the Convention is an agreement between States

• No definition of communities in the Convention

• Convention and Operational Directives request States Parties to involve and assist communities, with their consent, in managing and safeguarding their living traditions

Traditional Vallenato music of the Greater Magdalena region inscribed

on Representative List, Colombia, 2015.

© Leon Dario Pelaez, Revista Semana

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Inventorying of ICH

• One of the few obligations under the Convention

• Not necessarily ‘national’

• Inventories should be defined by communities;

• Problem of hierarchy/ranking the importance of ICH elements;

• Issue of inclusion/exclusion, scope and size of inventories;

• Some national inventories are not in line with the Convention (‘outstanding value’, ‘authenticity’);

• Issues of commercialization of ICH, labelling of inventoried ICH.

© 2004 by Melitta Abber

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Awareness-raising

• One of the biggest impacts of the Convention

International Level

• ICH has become an established concept in

general cultural heritage vocabularies

National level

• Increased recognition, including through TV,

radio, newspaper, internet etc.

• Communities whose ICH elements have been

listed have expressed intention to reinvigorate the

cultural activities

Suai villagers gathering, Timor Leste © UNESCO/R.Goswami

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Lists of the Convention…

• 336 elements inscribed on the Representative List

• 43 elements inscribed on the Urgent Safeguarding List

• 12 programs / projects / activities selected for the

Register of Best Safeguarding Practices

• Clear imbalance in favour of the

Representative List

• Although it has contributed to raising

awareness and impact on safeguarding ICH

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Inscribed elements –

regional imbalance

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

WesternEurope and

NorthAmerica

EasternEurope

LatinAmericaand the

Caribbean

Asia andPacific

Africa Arab States

Representative List

Urgent Safeguarding List

Register of Best Safeguarding Practices

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Working on cross-border ICH

• Represents opportunity for international / regional cooperation;

• Can raise awareness about shared identity and cultural roots;

• Can sometimes be used to establish cooperation between and serve to mutual benefit for states;

Listing can raise competitive feelings between states and communities;

© All Rights Reserved: UNESCO/ ICH

© 2012 by Péter Kohalmi

© Information and Documentation Center of Folk Culture/Ministry

of Culture and Tourism

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• Monitoring and evaluation framework with objectives, indicators and benchmarks needed to measure and demonstrate results

• An expert meeting to take place in Chengdu (China) in July 2016

Monitoring and evaluation

framework

Tchopa, sacrificial dance of the Lhomwe people of southern Malawi inscribed on Representative List, Malawi, 2014,

© Museums of Malawi

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Partnerships

• 8 Category 2 Centres under the auspices of UNESCO for Intangible Cultural Heritage

• 11 UNESCO Chairs in the field of ICH

• Need to encourage tertiary education, including postgraduate level of ICH safeguarding studies

• Collaboration with WHO, WIPO and the World Bank Participants of the Fourth Meeting

of ICH category-2 centers

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Recent developments

• 12 Ethical Principles

• Operational Directives on ICH and Sustainable Development in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

• Improved access to International Assistance

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Just adopted- Chapter on ICH

and sustainable development

• Inclusive social development • Environmental sustainability • Inclusive economic development • Peace and security

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International assistance

• Amount increased to US$ 100 000 for the requests to be examined by the Bureau, because:

States used to give priority to the Representative

List, rather than International Assistance, when

having to choose within the ceiling of files;

States lack human and financial resources to

develop international assistance requests that

adequately meet the eligibility criteria.

• New area for improvement – requesting for services under international assistance mechanism

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Capacity-building - most

important

• Long-term engagement with states to create

institutional and professional environments for

safeguarding ICH

• Activities in more than 70 countries since 2011

• 5 priorities:

Redesign of institutional infrastructures

Revision of cultural and other policies and

legislation

Development of inventory methods

Development of effective safeguarding measures

Participation in international cooperation

mechanisms

• Content and training materials + network of trained

expert facilitators

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Funding of capacity building in

South-East Europe

• Sofia C2C centre’s support is much appreciated, as no other donor in the region for the time being

• Cooperation with European Union with a view to start long-term and sustainable capacity building for ICH safeguarding:

• Safeguarding ICH is not one of the priorities for EU

• The voice of potential beneficiary countries is important in their negotiations with EU bodies

• Through international assistance

• By funds coming from countries’ themselves

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SYNERGIES BETWEEN 1972

AND 2003 CONVENTION

© All Rights Reserved: UNESCO/ ICH

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1972 Convention 2003 Convention

Focus Conservation of natural

and cultural heritage

properties

Safeguarding of intangible

cultural heritage elements

Nature Cultural and/or natural Cultural and/or social

Link to

Development

Heritage as fundamental

to sustainable

development

Cultural heritage as a

mainspring of cultural diversity,

an important vector for

sustainable development

Major

Stakeholders

Enhanced role of

communities (strategic

objectives 5Cs)

Communities and individuals

maintaining living intangible

heritage

Similarities in

domains…

Cultural landscapes Cultural spaces

Differences & similarities

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World Heritage

• World Heritage

List

• List of WH Sites in Danger • WH Committee identifies sites in

serious danger

• To encourage corrective action

Intangible Cultural Heritage

• Representative List • Register of Best Safeguarding

Practices • Urgent Safeguarding

• Identified and nominated by State Parties

• To mobilize assistance

Mechanisms

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World Heritage

• Outstanding Universal Values (OUV) decided by authorities and experts in consultation with stakeholders

• Comparison of value between sites; site must fill a gap on the World Heritage List as best exemplar or representative within its geo-cultural region/globally

Intangible Cultural Heritage

• Significance to communities, and decided by communities

• No comparison of value among ICH elements

• ICH changes over time

Core concepts

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World Heritage

• Integrity: wholeness and intactness of site, no impact on OUV from development/neglect

• Authenticity to be protected: OUV is truthfully and credibly expressed through form and design, materials and substance, spirit and feeling, etc.

• Evolution from the Venice Charter (1964) to the Nara Document on Authenticity (1994)

Intangible Cultural Heritage

• ICH can evolve but should not be divorced from its social context.

• Viability to be safeguarded: keeping the transmission and healthy changes of the practices to next generations >> continued practice / “Living Heritage”

Core Concepts

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In some cases, Intangible Heritage is

one of the contributing factors

that determines the

Outstanding Universal Value

of the World Heritage site.

Criterion (vi): be directly or tangibly associated with events or living

traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and

literary works of outstanding universal significance

e.g. Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Auschwitz Birkenau…

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Example of synergies in the lists

(Kenya)

© All Rights Reserved: UNESCO/ ICH

World Heritage List Representative List of ICH

Sacred Mijikenda Kaya Forests Traditions and practices associated

with the Kayas in the sacred forests

of the Mijikenda

• Consist of 11 separate forest sites spread

over some 200 km;

• Contain remains of numerous fortified

villages, known as kayas, of the Mijikenda

people;

• Regarded as the abodes of ancestors and

are revered as sacred sites and, as such,

are maintained as by councils of elders.

• The Mijikenda includes nine Bantu-speaking

ethnic groups in the Kaya forests;

• The Mijikenda identity is expressed through

forests- related oral traditions and performing

arts;

• Practices constitute codes of ethics and

governance systems, and include prayers,

oath-taking, burial rites and charms, naming of

the newly born, initiations, reconciliations,

marriages and coronations.

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Example of synergies in the lists

(Philippines)

© All Rights Reserved: UNESCO/ ICH

World Heritage List Representative List of ICH

Rice Terraces of the Philippine

Cordilleras

Hudhud chants of the Ifugao

• For 2,000 years, the Ifugao rice fields have

followed the contours of the mountains;

• They are the fruit of knowledge handed

down from one generation to the next, and

the expression of sacred traditions and a

delicate social balance;

• They have helped to create a landscape of

great beauty that expresses the harmony

between humankind and the environment.

• The Hudhud consists of narrative chants

traditionally performed by the Ifugao

community;

• The community is well known for its rice

terraces extending over the highlands of the

Philippine northern island;

• It is practised during the rice sowing season, at

harvest time and at funeral wakes and rituals.

• Include more than 200 chants. A complete

recitation may last several days.

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© All Rights Reserved: UNESCO/ ICH

Dr. Tim Curtis

Secretary of the 2003 Convention and Chief of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Section, UNESCO

www.unesco.org/culture/ich