ICHCAP

The 11th meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage will take place from 28 November to 2 December 2016 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Committee, consisting of twenty-four Member States was established by Article 5 of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage to promote the objectives and prepare the implementation of the Convention.

On 28 November, the Committee will examine reports on activities of the Committee’s Bureau and the Secretariat of the Convention and present the recommendations of the External Auditor on the governance of UNESCO and dependent funds, programs, and entities. From 29 November, the Committee will review the following:

• the current status of elements inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
• periodic reports of States Party on the implementation of the Convention
• nominations to the Urgent Safeguarding List and the Representative List and proposals to the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices as recommended by the Evaluation Body

On 2 December, the last day of the meeting, the Committee will discuss the preliminary expert meeting for developing an overall results framework for the Convention as well as the role of the Convention in responding to emergencies and of communities to respond to calls for assistance and overcome emergency situations that threaten ICH. Issues will continue to be discussed in the next annual session for 2017.

The Evaluation Body under the Committee has submitted the following evaluation results to the Committee for a final decision:

• out of six nominations to the Urgent Safeguarding List, the Body recommended four be inscribed and referred two to the submitting states for additional information
• out of thirty-seven nominations to the Representative List, the Body recommended eighteen be inscribed and referred nineteen
• out of seven proposals to the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices, the Body recommended three be selected, referred referred two, and recommended two not be selected

This year, in particular, the Committee will review the files for nominating Chapei Dang Veng to the Urgent Safeguarding List and the request for international assistance, which were submitted by Cambodia as the first such integrated mechanism.

On 27 November, the eve of the annual session, the fifth ICH NGO Forum Symposium, a gathering of UNESCO-accredited NGOs, will take place.