A total of 200 cultural workers from seven countries in the Asia-Pacific region attended the capacity-building workshop. UNESCO-accredited facilitators in ICH safeguarding, Suzanne Ogge and Rahul Goswami, were invited to deliver lectures. The workshop started with case studies. The trainees shared about climate change-related ICH elements in local communities from their home countries in their homework assigned and completed before the lectures, offering diverse perspectives for the training experience. During the online lectures, CRIHAP invited experts from Nepal, Pakistan and China to talk about relevant cases through comparison and analysis.

By conducting a comparative study of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms, knowledge in China of time and practices developed through observation of the sun’s annual motion and the Suri Jagek (observing the sun), traditional Pakistani meteorological and astronomical practice based on the observation of the sun, moon and stars in reference to the local topography, the facilitators enabled the trainees to fully understand how ICH contributed to phenological monitoring. The trainees also learned about how several ICH elements contributed to the after-disaster recovery of local communities in Nepal.