CRIHAP held the 10th Session of the Governing Board online in Beijing on April 26, 2021. [Photo by Li Zizhou/Library of Chinese National Academy of Arts]

CRIHAP held the 10th Session of the Governing Board online in Beijing on April 26, 2021.

Zhang Xu, Chairperson of the Governing Board, member of the leadership and vice-minister of Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China, presided over the session in Beijing.

All other members of the Governing Board attended the online session. Sitting in on the event were also more than 60 representatives from the Advisory Committee, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO, the UNESCO Beijing Office, the International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (IRCI), and the International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (ICHCAP).

The Work Report for FY2020 and the Work Plan for FY2021 were examined and approved by the board at the session.

At the session, members of the board agreed that CRIHAP has worked effectively to implement UNESCO’s Capacity Building Strategy of ICH safeguarding at national and regional levels, and has achieved fruitful results in developing new themes for the training workshops.

Members of the board gave high regards to CRIHAP's endeavors to find effective measures to overcome difficulties and to ensure all online training sessions went smoothly, to its efforts to design and carry out customized courses with varying themes to meet specific needs of participants from widely different backgrounds, and also to its arrangement of classes with the timely and practical theme of "moving forward with ICH safeguarding while fighting the pandemic as a new normal".

At the session, it was agreed that CRIHAP has striven to hold highly valuable, country-specific safeguarding capacity building workshops in spite of a shortage in funding and a lack of personnel at the time of a global pandemic.

It was agreed at the session that CRIHAP made very detailed training plans, adapted to whole new work approaches combining online and offline courses, focused on the most recent trends and the priorities of UNESCO's Capacity Building Strategy of ICH safeguarding, adopted effective tactics and measures enabling ICH to play a positive role during a pandemic for workshop participants from different parts of the Asia-Pacific Region.

It was agreed that these training sessions proved to be effective in improving the workshop participants' ICH safeguarding capabilities. In so doing, CRIHAP has become an important platform for cross-regional and international cooperation in the field of ICH safeguarding. CRIHAP's training experiences are widely considered to be useful for the IRCI and ICHCAP.

It was also agreed that the Work Plan for FY2021 has a clear focus on the priorities of UNESCO’s Capacity Building Strategy of ICH safeguarding. Members of the board highly appreciated the continued efforts that CRIHAP has been making to carry out UNESCO’s Capacity Building Strategy of ICH safeguarding in spite of challenges posed by the pandemic, and to fulfill its duties as a Category 2 center by providing 11 training workshops in the coming months for member states in the Asia-Pacific Region under the framework of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH.

The members of the board have noticed that CRIHAP is striving to capture the most recent developments in UNESCO’s Capacity Building Strategy of ICH safeguarding and the hot issues in ICH safeguarding worldwide. To obtain this end, CRIHAP has been collecting relevant information, participating in seminars at national, regional and international levels, and editing and publishing CRIHAP Bilingual Newsletters on ICH safeguarding. It has also been updating its training courses accordingly to make sure these research results benefit as many as possible countries in the field of ICH safeguarding.

The members of the board have expected CRIHAP to function even better as an international exchange platform, seek cooperation with other international institutions, make the best of social media to spread the message of ICH safeguarding, and carry out in-depth training in areas such as sustainable development, ICH and education.

Zhang Xu, chairperson of the Governing Board, spoke highly of what CRIHAP did in the past year. "In face of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, CRIHAP took new and creative approaches to deliver its work and eventually managed to accomplish all tasks as planned," Zhang noted. "As a Category 2 center, CRIHAP acted pursuant to the UNESCO's relevant rules and regulations, and implemented its duties well, especially in international training."

Because of the many encouraging and remarkable results in CRIHAP's performance, the center was unanimously recognized and highly appreciated at the session by all relevant parties, including the UNESCO and the state members in the Asia-Pacific Region.

The pandemic remains a grave, complex and global concern posing a great challenge to CRIHAP's work. But Zhang hopes that CRIHAP will put in place well-conceived contingency plans, establish a multilevel international cooperation mechanism, push forward its work in all aspects, actively fulfill its obligations as a Category 2 center under the umbrella of UNESCO, further explore new ways to carry out its duties and create more positive results in its work performance, so as to fully implement UNESCO’s Capacity Building Strategy of ICH safeguarding and to make renewed contributions to building a community of shared future for humankind.

Zhang stressed that the Chinese government will further its cooperation with UNESCO, continue to support CRIHAP to better execute its duties, playing a more vigorous role in promoting the implementation of the Convention in the Asia-Pacific Region and beyond.