Ecuador Policy training concluded © UNESCO 2016

The last of three capacity-building workshops on elaborating public policies to safeguard intangible cultural heritage was held in Puerto López (Manabí province) on 16 June. Organized by UNESCO, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, and the National Institute of Cultural Heritage (INPC) the workshops, held over the past few months, were an excellent opportunity for bearers of Ecuador’s living culture and officials from the Ministry’s local offices, INPC, the National Secretariat for Planning and Development, and Autonomous Decentralized Governments to examine instruments for reviewing and adapting development plans for the integration of intangible cultural heritage safeguarding. This work is extremely important particularly in light of recovery efforts made by the Republic of Ecuador after the tragic earthquake of 16 April. The third workshop in particular, examined threats to intangible cultural heritage in Manabí province and established a roadmap to include risk management in public policy-making for safeguarding living heritage. The sessions were a continuation of previous training on community-based inventorying that took place last year in Ecuador as part of a two-year project financed by Japan. It is expected that the project will strengthen the technical capacities of local authorities in the field of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage.