Protecting our heritage and Fostering Creativity
East Asia is home to abundant heritage resources that need to be conserved and safeguarded; it is also one of the world鈥檚 fastest growing economies undergoing accelerating urbanization and globalization. Balancing heritage conservation and socio-economic growth is therefore a key challenge. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognizes for the first time culture鈥檚 enabling and crosscutting role in sustainable development. UNESCO, as the only UN agency with a dedicated mandate on culture and as the facilitator of key culture Conventions, is ready to contribute the expertise on culture-driven sustainable development, and to provide platforms for the dissemination of the region鈥檚 good practices and experience to a global audience, especially to other developing countries.
Our experience and successful cases:
This toolbox serves as a practical tool to educate children and youth on cultural heritage and their identity as well as the protection of cultural property. It constitutes an innovative outreach tool for educational institutions and students in Mongolia.
鈥淐ultural Heritage in a Box鈥 includes cultural objects specimens, images, games and multimedia materials to educate children on cultural heritage in an interactive, educational and entertaining way. The activities for children are explained by accompanying guidelines for teachers, which include historical and cultural information on selected themes. Through consultation with teachers and relevant authorities, proposed activities are linked to the school curriculum.
The toolkit is targeted at young people, teachers and local communities.
We synergize our expertise in World Heritage conservation, living heritage safeguarding and promotion of cultural expressions and creativity to support China鈥檚 efforts in poverty reduction, eco-civilization, rural revitalization and cultural prosperity, as outlined in China鈥檚 national Five-Year Plans.
We have had direct in-depth cooperation with 13 World Heritage sites in China, with an area of 2.25 million hectares of geographic span. Through the partnership with over 50 entities including government, international organization, academic institution, NGO and media, over 70 local, national and international activities were organized, benefiting over 20,000 young people and training 1,420 heritage professionals.
We launched the World Heritage sustainable livelihood initiative in 2017 and have since fostered human-centered, culture-driven and development-oriented livelihood approaches in and around 4 pilot sites, especially targeting communities in southwestern China with a focus on empowering women. These pilot activities include Yi (Sani) embroidery in Shilin, bamboo handicrafts in Chishui, beekeeping and heritage education in Sichuan Giant Pandas Sanctuaries, and Miao embroidery in Songtao. By introducing cultural creativity, we helped local communities transform these unique and indigenous green eco-products and living heritage elements into sustainable and resilient means of income. This initiative has also informed local policy formulation and cultural industry development.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the close-down of World Heritage sites and halt to cultural activities, we transformed challenges into new opportunities by building the capacity of living heritage bearers on social media operation and short video making, thereby enabling them to transmit culture and heritage with a much wider audience, and also to engage with youth.
Poster series on World Heritage Sustainable Livelihood activities at 4 pilot sites in Southwest China & the Heritage So Young communication activity
What we can offer:
- Conservation, promotion and sustainable management of World Heritage sites
- Strengthening the capacities for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage
- Development of policies and measures to promote the diversity of cultural expressions
- Supporting the fight against illicit trafficking of cultural properties
- Innovating culture-based solutions for sustainable development at local and national levels
