The UNESCO Multisectoral Regional Office in Abuja, in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture of Nigeria, is organizing a capacity-building workshop on preparing nominations to the Lists of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, generously supported by the Government of Japan through the UNESCO Japan Funds-in-Trust. The workshop is one of the activities implemented as part of the three-year project (2014-2017) ‘Support to the effective implementation of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Nigeria’. This project is a commitment on the part of Nigeria to building its institutional and professional capacities to implement the Convention. As affirmed by a representative of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture through his speech at the workshop’s opening on 26 June 2017, the project has been making significant progress. The workshop is taking place in Abuja, Nigeria, until 30 June 2017.

The workshop includes 15 participants, of which nine are women, from the Department of International Cultural Relations of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture. As administrators responsible for cultural programmes in Nigeria, they are expected to gain the knowledge required to develop nominations for inscription on the Urgent Safeguarding List and the Representative List as well as to prepare International Assistance requests for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. Nigeria ratified the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2005, even before it entered into force in 2006. The Convention provides important guidelines to States Parties on how to safeguard living heritage within their territories.