UNESCO TOPIC

THE ANTICIPATED ROLES OF NGOS IN SAFEGUARDING AND PROMOTING ICH

Hani Hayajneh

(Representative of Jordan in the Intergovernmental Committee of the 2003 UNESCO Convention for Safeguarding ICH, expert of ICH management and Professor at the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology, Yarmouk University - Jordan)

Editor’s note: This Article is part of the “UNESCO TOPIC” series. Each edition will cover major topics of UNESCO in relation to the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Many experts of the world will contribute their perspectives to further the understanding ICCN members' on these topics.

NGOs and ICH:There is no doubt that Non-Governmental Organizations (hereinafter NGOs) contribute important information and ideas, advocate for positive methodological development and provide good capacity in understanding ICH related issues. Their activities can, with no doubt, be considered complementary to the local communities, as they are supposed to participate in safeguarding of ICH in a close affinity with them. They can lead us to new domains to which additional energy and efforts can be dedicated. We can profit from the NGOs expertise in identifying ICH elements, their analysis and description to make the communities aware of the importance of their living heritage. I find it very crucial to get the NGOs fully involved by the concerned governments for the inscription of new ICH elements and creating new measures toward preserving them. In line of the UNESCO Convention, communities, groups and individuals can assist in developing best practices for the protection and revivifying of ICH, and helping in management and safeguarding procedures.

They can furnish a background for the establishment of a code of ethics for usage of ICH when it comes to record the traditional knowledge. As representatives of wide spectrum of the local communities, they might help in implementing of programs on ICH education for children and youth and give advice to the UNESCO and the governments on how to stimulate and develop ICH policy and strategic planning. They can encourage local communities in organizing projects through which they can reach certain objectives to help them, especially in the artisanship domain, producing their own traditional products to elevate their living standards, enhance the local socio-economy and preserve their cultural values. NGOs are closer to the local communities and can react better than government to the needs of marginalized communities. They have the ability to stimulate networking with their peers in an effective manner, which can be reflected positively on the ICH of the respective country and lead to a better implementation of the 2003 Convention.

NGOs working in the ICH domain should seek sustainable community development through different means, e.g. micro-finance by help members of local communities create jobs of income-generating nature to improve economic situation. Furthermore, they are in the position to develop the capacities of local communities, such as skills, abilities, knowledge, assets and motivate them to participate in ICH projects to improve the quality of their live. Self-reliance is a further factor or strategy which might secure the sustainability of NGOs themselves as well as the community development. This aspect can be understood in the context of mutual cooperation and the participation of local communities.

NGOs vs. Governmental and public sector: Local governments should take the necessary steps toward helping NGOs to get acknowledged, develop the quality of their work, and support voluntary ICH related activities and initiative. This would pave the way for NGOs to become in the center of supplementing the governmental role, while, in the same time, not simply being an extension of the government. Governmental sector should take this into account when developing funding arrangements of ICH projects. Not to forget, that NGOs can create a balance towards the government power and public policy makers. In other words, NGOs need to be involved in the decision making and ICH policy formulating process.

Through governmental funding, NGOs will be able to carry out important work in the field of ICH protection and further insure appropriate execution of tasks, and help in building capacities of the community and voluntary work. As NGOs are independent, they are often in good situation to get directly in touch with local ICH bearer communities, especially the marginalize ones. This would, as a result, give the opportunity to build a good relationship with the targeted groups, societies or even individuals as bearers of ICH. Moreover, NGOs have larger margins in terms of initiatives and innovation, as they are not restrained by the limitations encountered in the public sector. The significance of NGOs in the field of ICH lies in the fact that some of them have specialist, practitioners or proficient persons who own ICH indigenous knowledge or expertise, which is lacking in the governmental domain.

NGOs and UNESCO: UNESCO can support or encourage establishing programs aimed at developing and building their capacity in the field of ICH. For capacity building and consultative matters, UNESCO should consider equitable geographic and territorial representation in each country as an important factor to ensure the rightful representation of diverse ICH elements spread over its soil; i.e. selected NGOs from different parts of the country should be taken up for advisory purposes, as the variety of NGOs reflects the divergence of ICH. The selection should depend on certain criteria that the country and the UNESCO can work out for this goal. Another important issue is that in most of the developing countries NGOs are not organized in a compatible manner to the western style and structure. This will decrease the chances of a wide range of NGOs to be involved in consultative matters, as the criteria defined by the UNSCO are highly demanding. Social, economic and other peculiar circumstances of a certain community, which a particular NGO represents, should be taken into account. Networking between similar bodies from the developed countries can be of great importance for exchanging experience and opportunities and will help to create criteria, measures and modalities to share information and knowledge on how to improve the quality of work conducted on ICH. The better use of the networks can be established by more political responsibility. Modern communication technologies can provide a mean for further enhanced participation of NGOs based a distance and reduce the cost. NGOs from developing countries can be assisted by UNESCO to organize seminars and workshops on the problems facing ICH preservation and the promotion of the Conventions among them. This will help to take up a position and enhance their ability to deal with their targeted groups and governments.

NGOs in Jordan: There is no doubt, that Jordan accepts as a fact the value of NGOs as an important factor in development. Due to political and economic openness of Jordan, political liberization, involvement in the process of globalization, and the constant social changes, the number of NGOs has increased in the last two decades. Their size is variable and they used to work in diverse sectors. They can be classified into six categories: Royal NGOs, which has affiliations with members of the royal family, Professional Business Associations, Charity Association, Foreign NGOs, and Cultural Associations. NGOs of latter category are permitted to work after they get registered under the Ministry of Culture. They have cultural, artistic, and educational programs and other activities of ICH nature. NGOs in Jordan played a very solid and structured movement to support the government in its developmental efforts targeting the local communities.

Some Jordanian NGOs, especially those working in the field of traditional knowledge and popular culture, suffer from several problems and challenges that make its sustainability and mission not easy to realize, e.g. ICH related NGOs are not distributed adequately on the Jordanian soil; the majority is mainly concentrated in Jordanian cities. I believe, as mentioned above, that the geographic representation of NGOs should inevitably be linked with the cultural diversity in each country. Among the problems facing NGO sector in Jordan is that most of them have diverse interests and goals and they are mostly multi-activity oriented rather than focusing on a specific field, which causes in certain cases duplication of activities and dispersed their efforts. Shortage of financial and human resources, and lack of cooperation and networking are further obstacles that face this sector. Remarkable is the lack of a clear policy concerning the concepts of implementing ICH in sustainable development. Reviewing the legislation governing the Jordanian NGOs and their relationship with it would definitely give them more opportunity and new impulse for better participation in sustainable development and will create a new basis for the Jordanian NGOs to contribute vehemently to facilitating the work with international organizations, like UNESCO, especially in the field of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Some NGOs in Jordan are youth-focused. I believe that such category of civic bodies can be of great significance and constitute an ideal venue for Jordan to promote its ICH values among the youth. As they are active in a wide range of fields, they would give us the opportunity to get them oriented to ICH related matters. They can work within specific core areas that can be implemented to serve the ICH in Jordan, i.e. non-formal education, volunteering and community service. Non-formal education within NGOs' working capacities is an important tool or the benefit of several ICH domains in Jordan.

One of the excellent examples of Jordanian NGOs is The Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development, which is a major force for sustainable human development, including the documentation and studying the Jordanian ICH. It is worth mentioning, that this NGO has executed a project on the cultural space of the Bedu in Petra and Wadi Ram which has been proclaimed in 2005 as one of the masterpieces of Oral Heritage of the Humanity and inscribed in 2008 on the UNESCO Representative List of ICH.

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