Hat boi is a Vietnamese intangible traditional performing art that has taken shape and developed during Vietnam’s history and is still preserved. It is form of traditional opera which has a five-hundrend-year-old history. It contains features close to the cultures of many other countries in Asia.

Singapore is a culturally diverse society and one of the most religiously diverse nations of the world, and the understanding of cultural practices aids in fostering dialogue and social cohesion in such a social context. This paper discusses the important role of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in fostering a deeper appreciation of the commonalities and differences among people, particularly in an era where societies around the world are facing complex effects of social diversity, movements of people and the effects of globalisation. It highlights the efforts to safeguard ICH in Singapore through partnerships between government agencies, educational institutions and the community.

One can say without any overstatement that, during the several last years, the significance of one of UNESCO category 2 center, the International Information and Networking Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO (ICHCAP), was essential in supporting the initiatives to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage in Tajikistan. It is known that, after the adoption of the UNESCO Convention on intangible cultural heritage safeguarding (2003), a wave of initiatives and efforts to safeguard intangible cultural heritage covered Central Asia, because there had been a process of self-recognition and changing opinions on spiritual heritage after the collapse of the USSR.

'Ariyapala&Sons' is a non-profit organization that works with the mask-making community in Ambalangoda. They have also developed a cultural center in the southern coastal region of Sri Lanka, well known for traditional masks and mask dancing. Ariyapala & Sons has established a mask museum in Ambalangoda . The museum is designed to introduce the viewer into the richness of the mask tradition of Ambalangoda and to strengthen this cultural heritage.

Angkor Park, spread over an area of 40,100 hectares, happily coexists with local settlements (112 villages scattered within the boundaries of the registered site and dating from before the inscription of the site as a World Heritage element in 1994) and a sizeable settlement outside—the town of Siem Reap, a mainly recent development south of Angkor. Siem Reap is the provincial capital with an international airport, over a hundred hotels and guesthouses, innumerable restaurants and cafes, and markets and shops, and this is to say nothing of administrative buildings.

Information is considered a safeguarding measure in the 2003 UNESCO Convention. The word ‘information’ is found several times in the text of the 2003 Convention. States Parties are required to provide information regarding programmes of inventory of ICH in their territories1. States Parties to the Convention are required to endeavour, by all appropriate means, to ‘ensure recognition of, respect for, and enhancement of the intangible cultural heritage in society, in particular through: …educational, awareness-raising and information programmes, aimed at the general public, in particular young people’.2 Educational, information, and awareness-raising programmes are herein identified as tools for ensuring the recognition of, respect for, and enhancement of ICH in society to be directed towards the general public, in particularly young people. That the younger generation be able to access information on ICH is essential to ensure ICH transmission for the ongoing safeguarding of ICH. This reference highlights the relation between information programmes and awareness-raising and educational programmes. Obviously awareness raising or educational programmes cannot be carried out without materials based on appropriate information on ICH.

Countries in the Asia-Pacific region abound in a wealth of cultural expressions, but these expressions are not often recognized as skills that may be used to revitalize communities. ICH safeguarding needs to look beyond research and documentation, building databases on art forms, and creating awareness through one-off festivals or made-up landscapes where the artists and crafts persons are uprooted from their natural environment to engage in demonstration. The paper shares examples from an initiative in India that emphasizes the need for investing in communities to revitalize their traditional skills and promote community-based creative enterprises, including cultural tourism to safeguard ICH. The Art for Life (AFL) initiative of banglanatak dot com, a social enterprise headquartered at Kolkata, India, aims at fostering an alternative pathway for development using cultural heritage as concrete means for improving people’s livelihoods and empowering local communities. Around twelve languishing folk art forms have been revitalized. The initiative has led to improved income and quality of life for 5,000 traditional artists. Non-monetized outcomes include improved education of children, improved health, and better access to sanitation. Capacity\nbuilding of the ICH practitioners, documentation, and dissemination, heritage education and awareness building, and promotion of grassroots creative enterprise have been the critical components of the safeguarding process.

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 Sundarbans, consisting of 10,200 km2 of mangrove forest across India and Bangladesh, is the world’s largest delta and mangrove ecosystem. Transected with rivers and creeks, the landscape is home to diverse and endangered flora and fauna, most famously the Royal Bengal Tiger. Because of its unique cosystem, the Sundarbans enjoy the status of a Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site. The area is also home to millions of forest-dependent people. The colonial period witnessed large-scale deforestation of the mangroves and in-migration, starting from the late eighteenth century, driven by the desire for more farmlands to generate revenue, development of a port township in Canning, and other factors. There was also a substantial inflow of refugees during partition at the time of India’s independence.

"I would first like to thank the International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region under the auspices of UNESCO for its excellent initiative in organising this meeting regarding the notion of sustainable development in relation to intangible cultural heritage. I have known Korea for more than thirty years now. I have always been impressed by the way in which your country manages to reconcile tradition and modernity, how, in respect of its heritage and its roots, it has preserved its traditional forms of expression and assured their development while promoting contemporary creation that is indissociably linked to the specificities of Korean culture. That’s why I have always cited Korea as an example to be followed and respected. And for this reason, over the past four decades, I have worked to make the intangible cultural heritage of Korea better known in France. Thanks to the support of Professor Kim Jeong Ok and the directors of the Korean Cultural Center in Paris, I have presented to French audiences, since 1974, several dozen performances such as Bongsan Mask Dance, Pansori, Sungmu, Salp’uri, Ssikkim Kut, Son Mu, Court Dances, Gagok, Samul Nori, different types of puppet and theatre performances, and so many others, offering a better understanding of the culture of your country to audiences who had been unaware of its richness. In this keynote speech, I will simply touch on a few issues that, I am sure, "

“Borderless cultural heritage”is the result of the perpetual transmission and dissemination of culture, intercultural exchange, and migration of peoples throughout human history. The view that a country constitutes a culture (heritage) and national borders serve as cultural borders is in line with a modern nationalistic perspective, which may not accurately reflect reality when considering diverse characteristics of culture. This is even more true for intangible cultural heritage (ICH), which is viable only when it is practiced by individuals or communities, than for tangible cultural heritage. Therefore, it seems obvious that transborder cooperation among communities and countries is critical to the safeguarding and transmission of ICH.

Pakistani culture is a living tradition practiced by most of its people. It includes both tangible and intangible cultural heritage.