Jamaica to host 15th session of Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee

The Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage ended its fourteenth session, which took place in the Colombian capital under the Chair María Claudia López Sorzano. The Committee adopted guidelines for safeguarding ICH in emergency situations such as conflicts and disasters (both natural and human-induced).The guidelines build on the research and experience acquired by UNESCO in recent years, including among Syrian refugees, internally displaced populations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and disaster risk reduction strategies in the Pacific Islands. During the last day of the session, the Committee decided that its fifteenth session will be held in Kingston, Jamaica, under the chair of Olivia Grange, Jamaica’s Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, from 30 November to 5 December. The Committee also inscribed five elements on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding and thirty-five on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Committee also added two projects to the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices and allotted US$387,770 from the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund to the Burkina Faso’s capacity building for stakeholders involved in safeguarding ICH in Burkina Faso.

For the first time, the Intergovernmental Committee removed one element from the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The session brought together more than a thousand participants and was opened on 9 December by President Iván Duque Márquez of Colombia and UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay.