St. Kitts and Nevis Hosts Diversification of Cultural Expressions Training Workshop, Conducted by UNESCO

Basseterre, St. Kitts, April 26, 2021 (Department of Culture): The Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis has ratified a few of UNESCO’s international conventions, since joining this UN specialised agency in Paris in 1983. The most recent being the 2003 Convention for Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage, and the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression, in April 2016.

This has allowed St. Kitts and Nevis to access UNESCO’s resources and expertise in protecting these specific cultural features.

As a result of a constructive relationship that exists between St. Kitts and Nevis and UNESCO, this international organization has sponsored various projects in the Federation in the areas of:

1. Education
2. Sports and
3. Culture,
…just to name a few.

The most recent being one associated with UNESCO’s 2003 Convention, that is, the Intangible Cultural Heritage or ICH, contributing one hundred thousand US dollars (US $100,000.00), through the Department of Culture and the Nevis Cultural Development Foundation (NCDF).

As recently as 2020, the above entities were not successful with a proposal for the Diversification of Cultural Expressions or DCE, which is associated with the 2005 Convention.

In an attempt to enhance the institutional capacity and chances of success at the next bid, the Department of Culture and the NCDF organized a virtual training workshop, which was conducted by UNESCO and the International Fund for Cultural Diversity, the IFCD, on Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd April.

Mr. Troy Bif Mills, the Director of Culture, who chaired the first day of the workshop, said it was most timely and beneficial, and thanked UNESCO and the IFCD for facilitating the event.

The Chief Executive Officer of the NCDF, Mr. Jerome Rawlins chaired day 2 of the workshop, and he stated that he is now convinced this training has prepared us for the task ahead in being successful in our next submission.

Ms. Dorothy Warner, the Secretary-General of St. Kitts and Nevis’ National Commission for UNESCO, expressed thanks to UNESCO for ensuring capacity building amongst the staff of the Department of Culture and the Nevis Cultural Development Foundation and added that the training should enable the team to be better prepared to present a successful proposal in the next IFCD series.

In 2020, more than one thousand (1000) proposals from all around the world were submitted to the IFCD for consideration, and only six (6) were approved.

The deadline for the next submission is 16th June 2021, which is only about seven (7) weeks from now.

Noted Ambassador David Doyle, the Federation’s permanent delegate to UNESCO in Paris, and instrumental with Ms. Warner in negotiating the training workshop: “Increasingly, the Federation’s ability to access expertise and funding from UNESCO in these areas needs to be accompanied by institutional capacity building assistance from UNESCO, and other multilateral agencies, which benefits a large number of officials from the Ministry of Education as well the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport & Culture, with resounding results”.