Reflecting on panelists’ various commitments and viewpoints to ICH safeguarding in the past 20 years, the session explores the future of ICH and its safeguarding. Speakers include ICH professionals and researchers from inside and outside the Convention, and researchers from the countries that are underrepresented in the Convention or that have not ratified the Convention.    

This session features the communities of ICH elements that are on the Lists of the Convention – Baul songs in Bangladesh and Vanuatu sand drawings inscribed on the Representative List, traditional folk dance Biyelgee and folk long performance technique of Limbe performances in Mongolia that are on the Urgent Safeguarding List, and so on. Having a conversation with practitioners and experts of respective ICH elements on the Lists, the session looks into their on-the-ground experiences on the nomination process and safeguarding efforts after the inscription.