The 11th coordinating meeting of the Category II Centres active in the area of Intangible Cultural Heritage was hosted by the Regional Centre for Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in South-Eastern Europe under the auspices of UNESCO (Sofia Regional Centre), in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The meeting was held on 5 and 6 September 2023 and hosted all eight category II centres dedicated to the intangible cultural heritage. The Tehran ICH Centre was represented by a delegation of two headed by Ms Atusa Momeni, Director General of the Centre, and Ms Mehrnaz Pirouznik, Senior Programme Specialist for International Cooperation.
New developments in implementing the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, matters linked to the implementation of the Convention by the 8 relevant C2Cs, and modalities for enhancing cooperation between the C2Cs were discussed.
It is noteworthy that the annual meetings of the Category 2 Centres active in the field of intangible cultural heritage started in 2013 with the first meeting held in the town of Sozopol (Bulgaria) and hosted by the Regional Centre Sofia. The following meetings took place in Paris (France) in 2014; Guiyang (China) in 2015, Paris (France) in 2016, Shiraz (Iran) in 2017; Paris (France) in 2018; Algiers (Algeria) in 2019; online in 2020 and 2021; Paris (France) in 2022. The meetings are aimed at the representatives of the eight global centres – directors and staff, in Algeria, Bulgaria, China, Iran, Japan, Peru, Republic of Korea, United Arab Emirates, in order to enhance the communication and exchange between the network and UNESCO (UNESCO, 2023).
