Towards a " wiki" inventory of ICH  in Scotland

 UNESCO has been a leader on the functions and values of cultural expressions and practices. The 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, describes intangible cultural heritage (ICH) - or living heritage - as the mainspring of our cultural diversity and its maintenance a guarantee for continuing creativity.
In 2008, Museums Galleries Scotland in partnership with the Scottish Arts Council and the UKNC Scotland Committee commissioned a report by Napier University on ICH in Scotland. Following from this important report, The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has awarded a grant to Napier University to set up an "wiki" inventory to record and preserve aspects of Scotland's culture that cannot necessarily be housed in museums. The grant sum is significantly larger than any other previous Knowledge Transfer Fellowship awarded by AHRC. The UKNC for UNESCO Scotland Committee remains a partner in the project and there will be more to report in our winter e-bulletin.

Africa is one of two overarching UNESCO priorities for the Medium Term Strategy 2008-2013, reflecting the recommendations of the 2005 World Summit Outcome document. UNESCO also leads the United Nations Science and Technology Cluster in support of NEPAD. UNESCO supports science, technology and engineering education in Africa, and the creation and maintenance of North-South and South-South scientific research networks including in the context of higher education.  To further these aims, the UKNC Scotland Committee,  awarded a grant  to the Scottish Institute of Sustainable Technology in Dec 08, for an "Engineering Capability in Rwanda" project which built upon previous work undertaken in Tanzania and Bangladesh and aimed to establish the skills and assess professional gaps in the areas of construction, civil engineering and infrastructure in Rwanda - in terms of numbers, needs and institutional capacity. The final report concludes that without increased numbers of engineers, and improved skill levels, Rwanda will be unable to meet its development needs without using expensive international personnel. The new Institute of Engineers Rwanda (IER) is an important part of the institutional infrastructure required to help build up the necessary skills. The Institution of Civil Engineers (UK) plans to support the IER where
possible and one of the aims of the report was to provide baseline information to facilitatethat support, and to provide some ideas for the forms the support could take.
Click here to view the Final Project Report.

On the 12th May 09 , at the Scottish Parliament, the  Scotland Committee co-organised with the Cross Party Group on International Development a session around:
"Education under attack: A global study on targeted political and military violence against education staff, students, teachers, union and government officials and educational institutions" . This study was commissioned by UNESCO and details how political and military violence targeting educational systems is depriving a growing number of children of the right to education. This study focuses on targeted violent attacks, carried out for political, military, ideological, sectarian, ethnic or religious reasons, against students, teachers, academics, education trade unionists, education officials and all those who work in or for education institutions such as schools, colleges and universities. It also includes attacks on educational buildings, such as the firebombing of schools. It urges the international community to address the issue of violent attacks, press for an end to impunity for such attacks and extend the application of human rights instruments to cover violence against education. It recommends the establishment of a publicly accessible global database to facilitate the examination of trends in the scale, nature and targeting of attacks as well as qualitative research into their motives. It calls for the allocation of more resources to the International Criminal Court so that more education-related cases can be brought to trial. Case studies of Iraq, Afghanistan, Thailand, Nepal, and Colombia are presented. This report is dedicated to the memory of Safia Ama Jan, a former Afghan teacher who, during the reign of the Taliban, risked her life by running an underground school for girls from her home. As you will know, one of the MDGs and Goal 2 of EFA is to ensure universal primary Education by 2015, and this is unlikely to happen if Education( teachers, pupils, etc) are under attack in conflict and non-conflict countries. Read the report here. At this session,  the author, Brendan O'Malley, presented the report and set the issues, and Mark Richmond,  UNESCO's Director  for UN Priorities on Education responded by setting out the work UNESCO is  undertaking with the UN to press for clearer resolutions, legislation and policies to make education a priority in humanitarian response and supported the call for States to regard attacks on schools as war crimes. It is likely that a second report  commissioned by UNESCO, and following from the previous one will be published in 2009.