Central Asia stands at the crossroads of ancient civilisations. Its territory, crossed by the northern part of the great Silk Road, constitutes an ensemble of cultural heritage sites and monuments that express common historical experiences as well as reflect an extraordinary cultural diversity dating from prehistoric times to the Islamic period and beyond. For centuries, the phenomenon of intangible cultural heritage was a key factor for the transmission of indigenous cultural traditions for future generations as well as a matching point for intercultural dialogue in Central Asia—a region with unique oral and music traditions.

With the 2003 UNESCO Convention adopted as a normative tool and essentially a basis to build ICH international cooperation, further attention was driven to a question of building functioning and sustainable ICH networks. In most cases networks do have more or less defined rules of the game, to which all the members agree when joining and acting as members. In this regard, the purpose a network was created for, its mission and the objectives set are the primary considerations. We will see that some networks tend to have more clearly identified obligations and duties for the members while others are more flexible and offer higher degree of freedom. Joining a network on the other had offer certain benefits that differ depending on the nature of a network, and its objectives. Researchers identify three types of networking: operational, personal, and strategic. While operational networks are normally employed to have the job done efficiently, personal networks aim at personal and professional development through external contacts and are oriented to future potential interests. Strategic networks in turn are both external and internal and are needed to identify future priorities and challenges and making stakeholders support them. Although operational, personal, and strategic networks are not mutually exclusive, to maximize efficiency effective leaders learn employing networks for strategic purposes.

Two frequently used proverbs in Korea are “like a rat caught in a jar” and “the sauce rather than the pot.” The first is used to describe someone caught in a difficult situation, like a rat that has fallen into a large onggi jar while the second means that the taste of the sauce contained within the pot is more important than what the pot looks like and is used to emphasize that content is more important than form.

Dr Diego Gradis expressed his regret at Dr Karma Phuntsho’s inability to attend the conference. Mr Guri asked Ms Joanne Orr to expand on the conditions and the environment for NGO network building. He asked Mr Gauthier whether NGOs in Quebec had other focuses besides research. Regarding African countries, he explained that since societies survived for generations before development, it is possible to build on indigenous knowledge—not for the sake of culture, but for the sake of development.

유네스코아태무형유산센터는 ICHNGO FORUM #HeritageAlive와의 공동협력으로 무형유산 종목도서인 리빙 헤리티지 시리즈 <전통악기>편을 발간하였습니다.\n\n다섯 번째 출판되는 리빙헤리티지 시리즈 <전통악기> 편은 아프리카, 아시아, 유럽의 사례를 소개하는 15명의 저자들의 원고를 담고 있습니다. 특히 저자들은 전승 위기에 처한 전통 음악의 현황을 공유하고, 2003년 협약이 강조하는 활성화 방안에 관하여 서술하고 있는데요, 음악이 가진 치유의 힘을 보여주는 책이라고 할 수 있습니다.

Starting my report, I would like to emphasize that ethnic identity has always been represented by a wide range of elements beginning from the basic such as the ethnic self-consciousness. I deliberately abstain from academic style of delivering and specific terms and definitions, under- standing that nowadays the audience is widely represented not only by the professional ethnologists and anthropologists, but by the representatives of culture sector and general public as well.

Key matters on modern significance of intangible heritage and its safeguarding Intangible heritage is living cultural heritage which can express human’s wisdom and sensibility intactly by this time. Even though some of them already disappeared, are about to disappear and would disappear not before long, there still remain many of them in our thoughts and experiences. Such heritage is the infinite future resources and traces of the past that human can enjoy in this digital era. The traditional cultures can play a more important role for us in feeling human’s emotions and humanity in the digital era because they contain old human’s memories, and can be an economic means as well. These intangible heritages, in essence, may have the same function even though their forms are different. In particular, we can see that certain cultures spread to neighboring regions, which led to the creation of a new form of culture in a community that accepted them. This process is important as an asset for sharing humanity and at the same time becomes a meaningful source for each community to have its cultural identity as an expression of diversity of human thought.\nTherefore, how to preserve the shared or coexisting intangible heritage among cultural communities is a key topic in the international society today. Meantime, there have been some cases in which even though they are the same kind of heritage, certain heritages in some areas were inscribed on the list of World Heritage but others were pushed aside, in spite of their equally excellent values. In today’s fast-changing society, if culture is neglected even a little bit, it will disappear. Then, if it disappears, total amount of culture in that society will eventually shrink, which means that the future values will be lost. What is called culture inevitably comes to vanish without those who use it, no matter how creative it is. In order to preserve traditional heritage that may disappear at any time, it is an essential process to persuade the society, develop modern utility and seek for strategic methods, deeply thinking of its future value of such heritage.

Intangible heritage is living cultural heritage which can express human’s wisdom and sensibility intactly by this time. Even though some of them already disappeared, are about to disappear and would disappear not before long, there still remain many of them in our thoughts and experiences. \n\nSuch heritage is the infinite future resources and traces of the past that human can enjoy in this digital era. The traditional cultures can play a more important role for us in feeling human’s emotions and humanity in the digital era because they contain old human’s memories, and can be an economic means as well. These intangible heritages, in essence, may have the same function even though their forms are different. In particular, we can see that certain cultures spread to neighboring regions, which led to the creation of a new form of culture in a community that accepted them. This process is important as an asset for sharing humanity and at the same time becomes a meaningful source for each community to have its cultural identity as an expression of diversity of human thought. \n\nTherefore, how to preserve the shared or coexisting intangible heritage among cultural communities is a key topic in the international society today. Meantime, there have been some cases in which even though they are the same kind of heritage, certain heritages in some areas were inscribed on the list of World Heritage but others were pushed aside, in spite of their equally excellent values. In today’s fast-changing society, if culture is neglected even a little bit, it will disappear. Then, if it disappears, total amount of culture in that society will eventually shrink, which means that the future values will be lost. What is called culture inevitably comes to vanish without those who use it, no matter how creative it is. In order to preserve traditional heritage that may disappear at any time, it is an essential process to persuade the society, develop modern utility and seek for strategic methods, deeply thinking of its future value of\nsuch heritage. To preserve the intangible heritage, it is necessary to build the favorable environment in which communities with such technological culture can keep working on new creative works. For this, each society has to make continuous efforts in cooperation with communities not to wither this\nheritage away. These efforts are important not only in terms of the transmission of tradition but also as cultural resource to form sustainability for a society in the digital era. Here, we should pay keen attentions to preventing such intangible heritage from being fossilized, remaining fixed cultural system and eventually being eliminated. Intangible heritage should exist as one culture, but its way of expression should adapt to the senses and demands of a new generation by constantly making creative transformation. By doing so, the original form can be also preserved as a part of diversity. In other words, the practical benefit based on tradition is a prerequisite for the transmission through generations.

The term intangible cultural heritage (ICH) refers to the diverse knowledge, techniques, performance arts, and cultural expressions recreated endlessly by collectives and communities through the interactions with their surroundings, nature, and history. ICH is characterized by communal retention within a collective and comprises a living aspect of culture, which is inherited through the daily lives of people. As a result, the international community, including UNESCO, has begun to newly recognize the value of ICH, and although the international community is showing greater interest towards the protection of ICH, trends such as globalization and urbanization have led to the extinction of many intangible heritage assets. ICH is a field in which the loss of the capacity for continuation and cultural abandonment are risks with high potential. It is for these reasons that there is a grave necessity to imbue the field of ICH with renewed vitality.

The most democratic among the suite of instruments in international heritage law is the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. It has a significant impact on the culture in sustainable development discourse in the Asia-Pacific region. This bodes well for the on-going struggle to provide a human face to globalization. Intangible heritage elements provide signposts for progress made in safeguarding the cultural and linguistic diversity of humanity. This paper focusses on bringing together people and their heritage in integrated approaches for promoting culture in development1. The following three case studies exemplify approaches to safeguarding intangible heritage in Asia and the Pacific. The recommendation is that ICHCAP, with its mandate for networking and information sharing, promote such case studies.

The UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) and its Operational Directives outline the important role of NGOs in creating awareness on the Convention, generating space for dialogue and the exchange of good practices and challenges for inputs to programming and policy making at varied levels, and facilitating community participation in taking safeguarding measures through knowledge and tools support and capacity building. The contributions of ICH NGOs have been manifold, including building the capacity of communities, researching and documenting ICH, upholding distinct identities of places and communities through cultural tourism, facilitating transnational flow of creativity, strengthening cultural resources, and developing artist organizations. Now the ICH NGOs need to play a critical role in enabling the inclusion of cultural dimensions in the post-2015 development policy framework. So far culture is not identified as a goal in the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, culture may be explicitly integrated as a target or as enabler in SDG goals like Poverty Eradication, Building Shared Prosperity & Promoting Equality, Quality Education & Lifelong learning, Gender Equality and Women Empowerment, Strengthening Global Partnership for Development, Ecosystems & Biodiversity, and Creating Peaceful and Inclusive Societies. Through knowledge sharing, networking, and mediating, they can effectively raise awareness among decision makers on the importance of the cultural dimension in development policies. By formulating innovative culture-based development projects with the participation of traditional bearers and practitioners, they can contribute to adoption of locally owned creative economy policies. Key areas of action will include mapping cultural resources; developing indicators on socio economic gains based on heritage, creativity, and cultural resources; and supporting capacity building for managing arts and strengthening the value chain.