Seperu folk dance, associated traditions and practices of the Basubiya
community in Botswana’s Chobe District © 2012, photograph by M. Josephs

Over twenty participants from seven countries in the Southern African region (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe) brainstormed and shared experiences in Lusaka, Zambia, from 2 to 6 October 2016 on how to best provide policy advisory services in the field of intangible cultural heritage.

Championed by intangible cultural heritage experts, this workshop entitled ‘Policy Development in the field of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Southern Africa’ capitalized on their experience resulting from almost one decade of community-based projects and training in the field. It is now time for those regional experts to scale up their approach to include policy development for safeguarding intangible heritage in their respective countries. The workshop generated concrete responses to the crucial need for the revision of policy and legislation in the long term.

Organized by the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa, this workshop results from the UNESCO/Flanders Funds-in-Trust project and the efforts of the Southern African Intangible Cultural Heritage Cooperation Platform, created in February 2015 and based at the Chinhoyi University of Technology in Zimbabwe with the view to provide a forum for discussion and coordinate safeguarding activities at the regional level.