ICHCAP

Regarding the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the deadline for submitting UNESCO nomination files closed on 31 March 2016. The nomination files include those for the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding (USL), Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (RL), and proposals on registering on the Register of Best Safeguarding Practices (RBP), and large-scale international assistance requests over US$25,000 for the 2017 cycle.

UNESCO posted information and forms on its website to help States Party sufficiently prepare nomination files and Aide-mémoires and provided twenty-three sample nomination files that the Committee considers exemplary examples.

The Secretariat will process the files, including registration and acknowledgement of receipt, by 30 June 2016. If a file is found incomplete, the State Party will be invited to complete the file. Revised files must be submitted to the Secretariat by 30 September 2016. Referring to the recommendation from the Committee, among the submitted files, the Secretariat will examine fifty based on the following levels of priority:

1. files from States having no elements inscribed and nominations to the USL
2. multinational files
3. files from States with the fewest elements inscribed.

The submitted and remedied files shall be reviewed by an Evaluation Body, as established by the Committee. The Evaluation Body, which is made up of twelve members: six representatives from States Party non-Members of the Committee and six representatives from accredited NGOs, will hold a meeting sometime between April and June 2017 to discuss the files. Evaluation Body will submit its final recommendation to the Secretariat in September 2017. The Secretariat then transmits the evaluation reports to the Committee at least 4 weeks before the Intergovernmental Committee meeting, and makes them available online for consultation. The files submitted by the 31 March 2016 deadline will be examined for possible inscription during the 12th session of the Intergovernmental Committee in November/December 2017

In the meantime, for the 2016 cycle, the Committee will examine the fifty files that were submitted last March and will be reviewed during the 11th session of the Intergovernmental Committee in November/December 2016 in Addis Ababa. Overall there are six files for the USL, thirty-seven files for the RL, and seven proposals for the RBP. Of these, sixteen are for the Asia-Pacific region. And all are for the RL except for Chapei Dang Veng of Cambodia, which has been nominated for the USL.