Lunar month festival of the Mongols or holiday celebration of the first day of “White Moon” or “White Month” symbolizes the departure of winter and welcoming the spring of the new year. This festival and its rituals and traditions are unique and naturally accorded with a specific lifestyle of Mongolian nomadic culture. Therefore, during this festival, there are no gatherings of masses on the street to participate in folk parades and street carnivals as in urban cities and villages.

Central Asia is a region that has served as the centre of social and economic, in particular cultural interrelations of East and West. The nations of this region have a rich cultural heritage and ancient traditions like any nation in the world. The nations of Central Asia - Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan – make up a unified cultural space, defined by great grassland steppes and famous mountains, nomadic culture and common history, relics and traditions. Throughout this region we find petroglyphs, keregsur, steles, ruins and other monuments attesting to the mingling of peoples in the Central Asian steppe since prehistory. The territory of our own nation, Mongolia, has indeed been the centre several nomadic empires at various stages in history, established by different peoples of Central Asia sharing a similar cultural origin – Hunnu, Khitan, Turks, Uighurs, Kyrgyz and Mongols.

UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage not only plays a great role in safeguarding cultural diversity and its transmission, but also brings people of the World closer together in a spirit of mutual understanding and peaceful cooperation. Intangible Cultural Heritage gives us a good chance for intercultural exchange and dialogue of peace. Aware of this and benefitting of the active lead and support of UNESCO its member states, in particular the countries in the North East Asia - People’s Republic of China, Japan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea and Mongolia - made Intangible Cultural Heritage one of their cultural regional cooperation activities and priorities. In this framework we will focus on some ICH related North-East regional projects and joint activities which were held in Mongolia with very active participation of the delegation from the DPRK. First of all I would like to take an example “2006 Children's Performing Arts Festival in North-East Asia in Mongolia” which was organized under Director-General of UNESCO Mr. Koichiro Matsura :

The intangible cultural heritage of any nation and ethnic group depends upon a locality, environment, business way of life, language, and condition of cultural history that is very diverse and unique. Thus, the intangible cultural heritage of any nation symbolizes their identities and constitutes an integral part of the world culture. The Mongolian nation and its ethnic groups are an inseparable part of the global population. The Mongols and their ancestors have lived and moved from place to place on the vast territory from the Altai Mountain ranges to the Khyangan Mountains, from Lake Baikal to the Chinese Great Wall. This area is a part of the vast and grassy Eurasian plain that stretches for several thousand kilometers from the Danube River to the Korean peninsula, and on which animal husbandry–based nomadic cultures and agricultural farming–based sedentary civilizations long co-existed.

In general, the socio-cultural dimension of development depend upon a social intangible cultural heritage (ICH) which provides nations, communities and groups with a sense of identity and community. Also any national cultural heritage, particularly the ICH, should be seen as evidence of a “creative industry” and a source of unique creative and energetic effort. It is a source for unique features and creative minds. ICH makes lives of communities and people more meaningful, pleasant and enriched. In another words, the ICH is vital and important for progress and development of giving society. This shows a great importance of ICH in creating sustainable development of society. These intangible heritage elements greatly contribute to sustainable livelihood of communities because they contain traditionally established customs and cultural patterns in society and help communities to keep and develop their spiritual and economic life in sustainable ways.