Team Herald
PANJIM: The 2016 South Asia Sub-Regional meeting of NGOs on Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage for Sustainable Development, kicked off on Thursday in Panjim.
Addressing the workshop Susanne Schnuttgen, Head-Policy Unit, ICH Section, UNESCO spoke on the implications of the UNESCO convention saying that the goal is to create institutional and professional environments for intangible cultural heritage for sustainable development and to promote broad public knowledge and support for the convention’s concept and objectives.
Mentioning that the ethical principles for safeguarding communities, groups and individuals, who create ICH should benefit from moral and material interest resulting from such heritage and stated that communities, groups should play an important role in determining what constitutes threats to their ICH including co-modification and misrepresentation in deciding how to prevent and mitigate such threats.
ICHAP Director General Kwon Huh spoke on safeguarding ICH and NGOs by creating regional collaboration, NGO conference network, sharing experiences, workshops and suggesting developmental directions.
and stated that NGOs need to participate in safeguarding activities that need to be based on the understanding of the respect to the heritage elements.
Amitava Bhattacharya, Founder Director, banglanatak.com, spoke on the role of NGOs in sustainable development stating that culture is the best component to engage people in society, as it reduces the vulnerability of unsafe migration. He added that livelihood is not only about income but also about engagement.
He also stated that development for people means food, shelter, engagement, employment and recognition and stated that it is important that NGOs work together with government authorities to bring out a proper plan for sustainable development.
35 organizations from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka are participating in the sub regional meetings in Goa. The meetings intend 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.
