The 14th session of the Governing Board Meeting of the International Training Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (CRIHAP) was held in Beijing on April 29, 2025. The Governing Board examined and approved the Centre’s 2024 Work Report and 2025 Work Plan. Members of the Advisory Committee, representatives from relevant UNESCO Category 2 Centres, and delegates from related institutions also observed the meeting.

Throughout 2024, CRIHAP organized a total of 10 international training workshops, with 9 completed and 1 multi-year program launched. According to the work plan approved by the Governing Board, CRIHAP plans to organize 12 training workshops in 2025. These will include 5 regional workshops for the Asia-Pacific region and ASEAN countries, as well as 7 single-country workshops for Laos, Mongolia, Indonesia, China, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, and Bangladesh. In terms of training themes, CRIHAP will continue to provide capacity-building courses aligned with UNESCO’s established themes for intangible cultural heritage (ICH) safeguarding, such as ICH inventorying, safeguarding plan development, and convention implementation. At the same time, the themes will focus on UNESCO’s recent priorities, including expanding capacity-building networks and developing facilitators, ICH and education, ICH and climate change, ICH and sustainable development, and shared heritage. CRIHAP will also further develop its “ICH Online Classroom” to widen public participation in international cooperation on ICH safeguarding.

As a UNESCO Category 2 Centre supported by the Chinese government, CRIHAP is tasked with capacity-building for ICH safeguarding in the Asia-Pacific region. As of January 2025, CRIHAP has conducted 87 international training sessions, benefiting approximately 3,580 participants from 44 countries and regions across the Asia-Pacific. These efforts serve as robust support for the implementation of the global strategy for capacity-building in ICH safeguarding.

(Translated by Zhang Yue)