A few wise men (and women) have descended
in the state of Goa for a noble reason. Representatives of over 35
organisations from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka are
in Goa to participate in the Sub Regional Meeting of NGOs on Safeguarding
Intangible Cultural Heritage for Sustainable Development. Participating
dignitaries include Susanne Schnuttgen, Head-Policy Unit, ICH Section, UNESCO
Headquarters in Paris, Kwon Huh, Director-General, ICHCAP, Seong-Yong Park,
Assistant Director-General, ICHCAP, Moe Chiba, Section Head and Program
Specialist, Culture, UNESCO New Delhi, Alan Gemmell OBE, Director of British
Council India and others.
Speaking about the venue of choice, Amitava
Bhattacharya, Founder-Director of Banglanatak dot com and one of the organisers
of the conference, says, “Goa celebrates diversity in a true sense. For any
conference, it is not possible to get as many people as we would have liked to,
but it is important to get representatives. It is of prime importance to get
people working on community, enterprise and policies limited to Intangible
Cultural Heritage and development. This is the best place where we can meet and
start networking with Indian and local NGOs.”
The conference intends to achieve a few
goals and these are A) To introduce the new UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable
Development Goals and the new chapter of Operational Directive on sustainable
development of the UNESCO 2003 Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention to the
NGO audience; B) To exchange experiences and collect good practices of NGOs
where safeguarding ICH improved the sustainable development goals of the
communities; and C) Discuss the modalities of future networking among the NGOs
in South-Asia including the means to collect data on good practices and the
impact of ICH safeguarding on sustainable development.
While the link between ICH and SDGs covers
the wide range of topics, as laid out in the Operational Directives of UNESCO,
the present workshop will focus on two of the main dimensions: Inclusive
Economic Development and Peace and Security (Social Inclusion and Community
Building).The organisers hope this first meeting to evolve into a South-Asia
online NGO platform through which, the experience and knowledge of grass-root
organisations may be collected to demonstrate that culture, and in particular
ICH, is the fourth pillar of sustainable development.
The entire event is being organised by the
International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural
Heritage in the Asia Pacific Region (ICHCAP) – UNESCO Category II centre at
Republic of South Korea, UNESCO New Delhi, the Directorate of Art and Culture,
Government of Goa and Contact Base (a social enterprise headquartered at
Kolkata and working under the trading style of banglanatak dot com).
The two
day conference will take place on August 25 and 26, 2016 at Sanskruti Bhavan in
Panjim. The meeting will be followed by a field trip for exposure to the
cultural heritage of Goa on August 27.
