- stocktaking all the reporting. The move towards a regional cycle of national reporting on the implementation of the Convention and on the status of elements inscribed on the Representative List required revisions to the Operational Directives, which were presented in the Annex of Document 10.
- 340. The Secretary mentioned once again that the Secretariat would develop a capacity-building approach to accompany the reform of the periodic reporting mechanism, which was coherent with Resolution 7.GA 9 that had just been adopted. Needless to say, the new reporting based on the regional rotation would make it much easier or logistically pragmatic to organize capacity-building activities. Other minor revisions proposed concerned paragraphs 152, 161 and 169 to introduce the possibility of submitting reports online. They were already available from this year on an experimental basis for the Urgent Safeguarding List, but obviously it was hoped that this would facilitate the process if they could be submitted online in the future. Paragraph 162 on the Urgent Safeguarding List reports had a minor revision to comply with the request of the Committee at its tenth session in 2015 to include the possibility for reporting States to update their safeguarding plans. Finally, the Secretariat had issued a revised working document on this item on 31 May [2018] to clarify a technical point in the newly proposed paragraph 166, which was done after consultation with the Office of International Standards and Legal Affairs of UNESCO. The proposal was meant to confirm the existing practice for the publication of reports and to merge it with paragraph 167 on the processing of reports. It had now become an established practice for the Secretariat to prepare an overview of all the reports on the implementation of the Convention using Form ICH-10 and to submit it to the Committee. For reporting on elements inscribed on the Urgent Safeguarding List using Form ICH-11, no such overview was prepared but a summary and draft decision for each individual report was submitted. The first sentence of paragraph 166 was therefore to reflect this practice. The second sentence of this paragraph also clarified the substance [of the reports] published online for public consultation. The overview of the report on the implementation of the Convention was thus submitted using Form ICH-10 together with the reports on the implementation of the Convention received in compliance with paragraph 151, and the reports on the status of elements inscribed on the Urgent Safeguarding List were received in compliance with paragraph 161. For this reason, the Secretariat had included the reference to the submission in compliance with those paragraphs - 152 and 161, respectively - to ensure unequivocal understanding by all.
- 341. The delegation of Cuba welcomed the information by the Secretariat regarding the revision of the periodic reporting system, believing that this mechanism would allow States to effectively implement the revisions to the Operational Directives. It also understood that this process would move from a national to a regional cycle of reporting. However, the delegation wished to know what would happen to the national reports already prepared by some countries. Moreover, some countries, especially SIDS, might face difficulties in presenting their regional reports digitally given the poor internet connection in some States, and thus paragraph 152 should be modified so that States could continue to send their reports by email.
- 342. The delegation of Malaysia praised the Committee for endorsing the recommendation of the open-ended intergovernmental working group to reform the periodic reporting process so as to enhance its quality and function. It also welcomed the decision of the Committee to amend the periodicity of the submission of national reports, in which States Parties would submit their national report every six years on the basis of a system of regional rotation to enhance regional exchange and cooperation. In this regard, it would propose an amendment to the draft resolution to enhance the monitoring measures discussed and adopted in Resolution 7.GA 9.
- 343. The delegation of Latvia expressed its full support for the amendments proposed to revise the Operational Directives. Latvia was convinced that the regional cycles for national reporting would contribute to advancing cooperation within regions in the exchange of experiences, which would be particularly useful in the case of multinational nominations that unite a number of countries from the same region. Regional cycles could also encourage