Abu Dhabi readies to host UNESCO meeting

In Abu Dhabi, the Committee will decide whether the elements which were nominated and examined shall or shall not be inscribed.

The UAE capital will receive around 400 official delegation members from the 114 countries that have signed the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Heritage of 2003.

Representatives of more than 50 associations, regional organizations, and non-governmental organizations will also attend the meeting, concerned with activating the 2003 convention.

The delegations include many ministers of culture and other high-ranking officials, in addition to international figures and ambassadors concerned with intangible heritage amid wide media interest.

"Intangible cultural heritage is a melting pot of human cultural diversity," said Dr. Nasser Al Hamiri, Director of the Department of Intangible Heritage of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), and who was elected as an expert and a representative of the UAE at the Committee.

"Abu Dhabi has a distinguished intangible cultural heritage in its rich oral literature, original customs, popular traditions, traditional handicrafts, in addition to popular games, sports and performing arts, which are an important part of daily life in Abu Dhabi and the UAE," he added.

The Committee had held a number of meetings in Algeria, China, Japan, and Bulgaria since 2006. uring its third meeting in 2008 in Istanbul, the United Arab Emirates was elected to host the 2009 meeting.

Also elected was the Presidency Office of the Intergovernmental Committee Safeguarding Intangible Heritage for the next session from September 2008 to September 2009 from the representatives of six regional groups of member states: UAE (President), Croatia (Headquarters), Cyprus, Mali, and Paraguay (Vice-Presidents).

The Committee has elected the candidate of the UAE, Mr. Awad Ali Saleh, for the presidency of the fourth session whose next meeting will be in Abu Dhabi.

The Committee discussed the forming a team of experts entrusted with considering of the requests made by various countries around the world for the registration of intangible heritage components in the representative list of human intangible heritage at the UNESCO.

Members of elected panel of experts were from: UAE, Turkey, South Korea, Estonia, Kenya, and Mexico. In November 2008, 90 cultural elements were included in the Representative List, where they were considered as mere artifacts in 2001 and 2003 and 2005.

The United Arab Emirates cooperation with the UNESCO is not new. In 1988 the Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture was established with financial support from the UAE, which helped to promote the emergence of the rich diversity of Arab culture in the world.

The UAE is a member of the World Heritage Convention and its role in supporting intangible heritage is particularly notable, especially in the meetings of 2003 and 2007.

Abu Dhabi is also distributing a UNESCO book on intangible heritage.