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- Iceland was concerned about the resource situation and the challenging circumstances in implementing the Convention. In light of this, Iceland had decided to increase its annual contribution to the Convention from 1 per cent to 2 per cent as of 2018, and it encouraged other States Parties to consider supporting the Convention in this way. Iceland placed an increasing priority on the implementation of the Convention. It had now comprehensively identified institutions, organizations and individuals working with intangible cultural heritage in Iceland and it was in the process of setting up a database inventory to fulfil the requests of the Convention. Civil society was indeed a key partner in this process, providing valuable input and reflection as practitioners of intangible cultural heritage. The involvement of NGOs and civil society partners is crucial for safeguarding heritage and it encouraged the Committee to further explore opportunities to exchange and engage NGOs in its work, while considering the best practices of other UNESCO Conventions in this regard, and keeping in mind the crucial role of communities and civil societies in keeping intangible cultural heritage intact and alive.
- 235. The Secretary responded to the question by Venezuela, relating to budget line 3 under ' other functions of the Committee', to explain that the details of budget line 3 had been delegated to the Bureau, as has been the practice. Consequently, the Secretariat was not in a position to show its itemization until the General Assembly approved it. Once approved, on Thursday the Secretariat would present to the Bureau of the Committee a detailed budget line 3 with the expected results of those budget lines. The principle was that the budget line be used to reflect the ' other functions of the Committee ' whenever requested by the Committee, for instance, on capacity building, the knowledge management system, work on emergencies, work on intangible cultural heritage in education and so on. The rationale was that the money be used, for example, in capacity building for upstream work such as the development of materials, i.e. the kind of work for which it was more difficult to obtain funding through extrabudgetary sources even though this global level work was needed in various countries and regions. With regard to the question from India, and whether these posts were subject to the geographical distribution requirement, the Secretary was of the understanding that the geographical distribution set up under the C/5 related to the assessed contributions of the C/5 Regular Programme. These posts were in fact technical extrabudgetary posts, and until an accurate answer could be provided, the Secretary believed that they were not subject to the geographical distribution of reporting as Regular Programme posts, though this would have to be confirmed. Nevertheless, the Secretariat took note of the many interventions of the importance of geographical distribution in the potential recruitment of these posts.
- 236. The Chairperson then proceeded with the adoption of the draft resolution on a paragraph- by-paragraph basis. With no comments or objections, paragraphs 1 - 3 were duly adopted.
- 237. The Chairperson thus turned to paragraph 4, which was duly adopted. She then turned to paragraph 5.
- 238. In light of the discussion, the delegation of India wished to propose a small amendment to paragraph 5; after the semicolon it wished to add, ' keeping in mind the principle of equitable geographic distribution '.
- 239. The delegation of China also proposed an amendment that was seconded by Viet Nam .
- 240. The delegation of the Philippines supported India's proposal.
- 241. The delegation of Chile was grateful for the way the Chairperson was steering the session, and also added its support to India's proposal.
- 242. The delegations of Jamaica, Serbia, Hungary, Tunisia, Egypt, Ghana, Bangladesh and Indonesia all supported the amendment proposed by India.
- 243. The delegation of Bosnia and Herzegovina also supported India's proposal .
- 244. The Chairperson projected China's proposal onto the screen to see wh ether it improved the paragraph, given that India's proposal was widely supported. China's amendment would read, 'giving priority to competent candidates from developing countries with a view to better