2023-12-08 07:01:51
The Committee was also the occasion to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which currently brings together 181 States Parties and recognizes more than 700 cultural traditions and practices.
55 new registrations
From December 5 to 8, the 18th meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage was held, under the presidency of Botswana. At the end of the debates, the 24 member States of the Committee decided to register 55 new cultural elements, distributed as follows:
6 elements on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage that requires urgent safeguarding measures; 45 elements on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity; 4 elements on the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices for Intangible Cultural Heritage.
With these new inscriptions, 730 cultural elements from 145 countries are now part of UNESCO’s living heritage.
The Committee also decided to award two International Assistance grants: one to Zimbabwe and one to Paraguay, amounting to $321,300 and $74,500 respectively. Since the creation of the Convention, UNESCO has funded more than 140 safeguarding projects in more than 70 countries, for a total amount of more than $12 million.
In more than half of this year’s registrations, cultural practices are transmitted within the family, from generation to generation. This characteristic reminds us that intangible cultural heritage, as defended and promoted by UNESCO, is a living heritage that is safeguarded thanks to the action of transmission between individuals, especially within families, between parents and descendants.
The key role that women play in safeguarding and transmitting these practices is also at the heart of these new records. They are the true guardians of traditions, which are often also a source of emancipation and empowerment.
For the first time since 2008, this year the Committee registered a record number of 12 elements from the African continent, demonstrating the extent to which all regions of the world have taken on this Convention with the same dynamism and the same capacity to register practices.
The Committee also welcomed the 12 multinational registrations, as the Convention also plays an important role as a catalyst for cultural dialogue across borders.
This year 2023 also marks the first inscription on the UNESCO living heritage list for five countries: Angola, Bahamas, Cameroon, Djibouti and Grenada.
20 years of action to safeguard the living heritage of communities
The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year in Botswana, has radically transformed the way we think about heritage.
“Thanks to this Convention, the very definition of cultural heritage has expanded. It is no longer just about monuments, sites or stones. It recognizes that heritage is also alive, that it can be sung, written, listened to and played. “Each one of us is the bearer of a part of this heritage and is its guarantor,” declared Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO.
Today, the Convention is the voice of millions of practitioners and members of local communities around the world, whose knowledge, rituals, traditions and manifestations are safeguarded and supported by the international community as a whole. Located at the center of listing and safeguarding processes, local, often indigenous, communities have been at the center of this Convention for 20 years.
Beyond the registration process, UNESCO has been helping States Parties to transpose the norms and principles of the Convention into their national legislation for 20 years. Thanks to this, intangible heritage now benefits in most countries from a legal framework for safeguarding, as well as educational and economic programs, according to the same principle that exists for built heritage.
The next meeting of the Committee will be held in December 2024 under the presidency of Paraguay.
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