APAC 42 Countries' Intangible Heritage Officers Coming to Korea

Cultural Heritage Administration, Training Workshop to Strengthen Regular Report Writing Skills

The Cultural Heritage Administration, together with UNESCO, will hold a training workshop from the 26th of this month to the 1st of next month at the National Intangible Heritage Center in Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do. The workshop aims to strengthen the capacity of government and UNESCO officials from 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region to prepare regular reports under the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage is a representative agreement in UNESCO's cultural sector. It aims to protect and ensure the sustainable vitality of oral traditions and expressions, performing arts, customs and rituals, knowledge about nature and the universe, and traditional craftsmanship.

UNESCO recently developed a Comprehensive Performance Framework as a measure to evaluate the implementation of the Convention. Based on this, regular reports must be submitted once every six years from the date of a country's accession to the Convention. Asia-Pacific countries are required to submit their regular reports collectively by June 30.

The Cultural Heritage Administration organized the training workshop to promote effective preparation and submission of these reports. The plan is to enhance the capacity of national focal points by reflecting the new standards and framework.

Korea is a member state of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, elected at the Convention's General Assembly. Korea not only has an advanced cultural heritage protection system but also takes a leading role in supporting intangible heritage protection activities in the international community and UNESCO. Notably, in 2016, Korea transformed UNESCO's regular report format into an online system through a trust fund, and since 2019, it has supported the implementation of the Comprehensive Performance Framework through the Asia-Pacific Center.

The Cultural Heritage Administration stated, "We hope this training workshop will serve as a direct opportunity to enhance the capacity of Asia-Pacific member states in preparing regular reports and play a key role in building a foundation for inter-country cooperation."

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