Knowledge management 6s4d19

CRESPIAL’s 2018-2021 Strategic Plan laid the groundwork for a renewed focus on knowledge management to strengthen the capacities of Member States and various stakeholders in safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). This updated vision focuses on regional collaboration, information exchange, and developing strategies to generate in-depth knowledge on safeguarding ICH in communities in the region. 6dj5v

Within the framework of this strategy, CRESPIAL is committed to:

• Establish and apply guiding criteria to facilitate information exchange and develop strategies that generate knowledge on safeguarding ICH in communities.
• Strengthen two critical areas of knowledge management: internal and external.
• Internally, CRESPIAL will focus on:
  • Manage your organizational experiences, practices, and procedures.
  • Transform this knowledge into learning opportunities for institutional strengthening in the medium and long term.
  • Recognize knowledge as a fundamental element for problem-solving and decision-making.
• Externally, CRESPIAL’s knowledge management strategy seeks to:
  • Improve dialogue and inter-learning mechanisms on ICH-related issues.
  • Promote the formulation, implementation, and development of cultural policies.
  • the development of safeguarding actions.
  • Make good practices visible and share them.
  • Encourage new discussions on ICH, including gender, risk, sustainable development, and armed conflict.
• To achieve these objectives, CRESPIAL will be based on:
  • The circulation of information through its media and platforms.
  • The creation of spaces for interaction and exchange of knowledge and experiences.
  • The production of relevant and high-quality content.
• Under this knowledge management strategy, CRESPIAL seeks to foster interaction between various actors:
  • The public sector.
  • Higher education organizations.
  • Research centers.
  • The private sector.
  • Non-governmental organizations.
  • Civil society and communities mainly carry ICH.

This updated approach to knowledge management at CRESPIAL will strengthen the capacities of Member States and various stakeholders in safeguarding ICH, promoting regional collaboration and information exchange to generate in-depth and relevant knowledge for communities.

CRESPIAL has constantly promoted the generation of relevant and updated information on implementing the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, as well as its possibilities and challenges.

In 2017, a project was developed through 15 independent consultancies for each Center member State to update the State of the Art on policies for managing and safeguarding ICH in Latin America. This effort culminated in a publication in 2019.

The documents in this publication continue two previous exercises: the 2008 publication on “The State of the Art of Intangible Cultural Heritage” and the 2010 publication on “Experiences and Policies for Safeguarding ICH in Latin America.”

This document seeks to be a comparative instrument over time for the Region through critical and proactive analysis of how the Center’s Member States have been implementing the safeguarding of ICH. In this way, the documents have analyzed the policy instruments developed and the safeguard measures carried out, providing information on the progress, challenges, and opportunities of this implementation.

Unlike the previous ones, this publication emphasizes the concept of ICH management, which comprehensively addresses the safeguarding of ICH and the possibilities of expanding this field of action. Likewise, the analysis of the participatory dimension is transversal to all the documents as one of the main challenges of ICH management and safeguarding. The country documents and the general balance characterize the legislative frameworks, institutional frameworks, and safeguard mechanisms present in the countries, identifying the common debates and challenges in the region.

This publication contributes to the consolidation and learning process of the Center’s Member States, being a tool that favors decision-making and cooperative learning between countries. This document has allowed CRESPIAL to align strategic plans with regional perspectives, reiterating the importance, validity, and need for South-South cooperation to consolidate national processes and strengthen regional capacities.

With the systematization of Safeguarding Plans, the aim was to prepare a document that characterizes and makes a comparative analysis of the conceptualizations, experiences, and methodologies of the PCI safeguarding plans in the Latin American countries that are part of the Center.

This activity, from the Technical Secretariat of CRESPIAL, aimed to provide input to the states for preparing and implementing this PCI management and safeguarding tool.

In technical and programmatic , the systematization of Safeguarding Plans was proposed within the Knowledge Management line, articulating the results with the objectives of the Community Management, Knowledge Management, and Capacity Building line.

CRESPIAL has edited this publication within the Knowledge Management programmatic line framework to contribute to developing new discussions on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in the region. Likewise, it is also a precedent for the multinational ICH and Risk project, prioritized by the General Assembly of the UNESCO 2003 Convention and approved for execution at the 13th CAD held in Oaxaca, Mexico, in October 2018.

As the author mentions in the document, the topic “represents, without a doubt, a novel and relatively little explored area, even though many countries in the region have been characterized by conflicts of varying scale and magnitude in the last three decades. In this sense, this text aims to explore the dimension of the risks inherent to armed conflict for Intangible Cultural Heritage in Latin America in the perspective of producing relevant recommendations to address a problem whose specific literature is predominantly inscribed in the understanding of the risks of conflict situations to cultural assets assigned to the dimension of tangible heritage.”

The document begins by pointing out some theoretical considerations and then addresses 7 cases in Colombia, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Finally, it concludes with recommendations and reflections on intangible cultural heritage and the armed conflict in the region.

CRESPIAL seeks that this document enrich the debate on the subject and encourage discussion to strengthen cultural policies and safeguard the region’s intangible cultural heritage.