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UNESCO Selects 34 Elements Marking Sudan's Intangible Cultural Heritage

The UNESCO headquarters building, seen here, is located in Paris. (© Charles Platiau/Reuters)
The UNESCO headquarters building, seen here, is located in Paris. (© Charles Platiau/Reuters)
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UNESCO Selects 34 Elements Marking Sudan's Intangible Cultural Heritage

The UNESCO headquarters building, seen here, is located in Paris. (© Charles Platiau/Reuters)
The UNESCO headquarters building, seen here, is located in Paris. (© Charles Platiau/Reuters)

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced the selection of 34 elements of the Sudanese intangible cultural heritage to make part the human cultural heritage, including "the cheese ritual, coffee, the Sudanese dress, and the Sudanese henna."

The selection came during a workshop in Khartoum aimed at developing strategies for safeguarding and developing intangible Sudanese cultural heritage and strengthening national capacities to carry out this mission in partnership with the UN and other global institutions.

In a keynote delivered during the opening of the workshop on Tuesday, Faisal Mohamed Saleh, minister of Culture and Information, said the partnership with the international community represented by the UNESCO, with the participation of the UAE, and the National Council for Cultural Heritage and Promotion Of National Languages, as well as the civil society organizations, is a good start for the development of strategies and indicators to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage of Sudan.

"The official institutions have been suffering from failure in managing cultural diversity, due to a lack of care and financial support," Saleh added.

For her part, Minister of Education and Scientific Research Intisar Saghiroun emphasized the important role of the heritage and unity centers in El Fashir and Blue Nile Universities and the Sinnar Regional Center for Dialogue and Cultural Diversity in this mission.

She also said her ministry's institutions are ready to assist and encourage studies in the field of "intangible heritage." The strategy for safeguarding intangible heritage is the first step in a project supported by the Heritage Fund and funded by the UNESCO and the UAE's Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority.

The project debuted in 2013 with the training and qualification of 164 administrators and researchers in heritage and culture. "There is little national capacity for heritage, so we signed the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage with the UNESCO in 2003, and 30 experts were invited to urge the safeguarding of heritage. We aim to highlight and preserve the rich Sudanese heritage, which gathers the African and Arabic cultures, as a symbol of national identity," Hassan said.

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China Looks to Spur Births, Aid Families in Fight on Shrinking Population

Tourists visit Jiayu Pass, a strategic point of the Great Wall of China along the ancient "Silk Road," near the city of Jiayuguan in China's northwestern Gansu province on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP)
Tourists visit Jiayu Pass, a strategic point of the Great Wall of China along the ancient "Silk Road," near the city of Jiayuguan in China's northwestern Gansu province on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP)
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China Looks to Spur Births, Aid Families in Fight on Shrinking Population

Tourists visit Jiayu Pass, a strategic point of the Great Wall of China along the ancient "Silk Road," near the city of Jiayuguan in China's northwestern Gansu province on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP)
Tourists visit Jiayu Pass, a strategic point of the Great Wall of China along the ancient "Silk Road," near the city of Jiayuguan in China's northwestern Gansu province on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (AP)

China outlined steps on Monday to improve family planning and parenting measures in an effort to boost the number of births, a statement from the state council, or cabinet, showed, after two consecutive years of a shrinking population.

The birth rate hit a record low last year in China, which has a population of 1.4 billion, as fellow Asian giant India outpaced it to become the world's most populous nation.

The state council called for efforts to build "a new marriage and childbearing culture" by spreading respect for childbearing, marriages at the right age, and parents' shared responsibility for childcare.

Measures on offer are better maternity insurance, maternity leave, subsidies and medical resources for children, with the cabinet urging local governments to budget for childcare centers and levy preferential taxes and fees for such services.

"Supporting childbirth at this stage is of great significance," said Yang Chang, chief policy analyst at Zhongtai Securities Research Institute, adding that Monday's announcement would serve as a template for future measures.

With the number of women of childbearing age between 15 and 49 likely to decline, and willingness to bear children not expected to rise soon, policy support was key to help reverse the downward trend in births, he added.

Although China abandoned its 35-year-old one-child policy in 2015, it has struggled to get the birth rate up, particularly as the period saw rural people stream into the cities for jobs.

Education is another area targeted, with local authorities asked to step up financial aid for students from disadvantaged families, with a mention of the "gradual expansion of the scope of free education".

Local authorities were also told to assist with the burden of housing and employment, by providing more support for families with multiple children to buy homes, and beef up protection for pregnant women and new mothers among workers.

Setting up non-commercial platforms for young people to make friends, date and get married was another way to encourage births, the cabinet said.

Monday's measures follow a survey this month by health officials seeking to understand the factors governing attitudes towards childbearing and the fear around having offspring.