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- address the several challenges it faced. The primary challenge was not being able to demonstrate the full potential of periodic reporting despite the wealth of information gathered since 2011. The main issues in this respect were the low rate and tardiness of submissions, and that the Secretariat did not know in advance how many reports would have to be treated in a fixed cycle, as well as reports focusing overly on activities and not on results and impacts. It was therefore decided that the reporting Form ICH-10 would be revised in light of the overall results framework in order to make it easier for States to report on the impact of the Convention against clear indicators and benchmarks. The Secretary reiterated that the reporting exercise should not simply be an obligation, but hopefully a useful tool for States Parties to self-assess the implementation of the Convention at the national level through their strengths and weaknesses, and to share with others their experiences gleaned and lessons learned. The open-ended intergovernmental working group also recommended that the Secretariat 'propose to the Committee for its consideration possible changes to the periodic reporting mechanism to move towards a regional cycle of national reporting and prepare draft revisions of the Operational Directives necessary to that end '. The Secretariat's proposals for such revisions were presented at the twelfth session of the Committee, which in turn recommended to this session of the General Assembly the amendments to the Operational Directives, as found in the Annex of Document 10.
- 339. The Secretary wished to clarify the following points. The procedure for the Urgent Safeguarding List reporting would not change because of the broader reflections on the future of the Lists. The transfer and removal of elements inscribed on the Urgent Safeguarding List would remain a separate reporting system on a quadrennial and an inscription year-based schedule. No revision was proposed for the procedure for States non-party to the Convention reporting on elements inscribed on the Representative List, which currently concerned only the Russian Federation. This would remain a sexennial reporting process based on the year of incorporation of Masterpieces on the Representative List. In order to help the implementation of the new reporting system, specific training modules would be prepared. Using these training materials, capacity-building activities would be conducted at the regional level. This would be an opportunity for collaboration at the regional and sub-regional levels to foster dialogue and exchange on national experiences. Operationally, the move toward the regional cycle of national reporting required several steps before the new calendar could be fully put in place. The Secretary displayed a graph to explain the idea. During the 13.COM in November 2018, the Committee would examine for the last time under the existing procedure the reports submitted by the deadline of 15 December 2017. The transition period would then last from the present General Assembly until the fourteenth session of the Committee in November 2019. Now that the results framework had been approved under item 9, the Secretariat would work on revising the periodic reporting Form ICH-10, as requested, develop a capacity-building approach and prepare the necessary materials. The submission of periodic reports on the implementation of the Convention would therefore be suspended for the deadlines of 15 December 2018 and 2019, including for overdue reports. The updated Form ICH-10 and the new capacity-building approach and materials would be presented to the Committee at 14.COM in November 2019. The preparation of reports in the first region would then start in early 2020 and last until the submission deadline of 15 December 2020. The Committee would then examine these reports from the first region at the 16.COM in November 2021. At the same time, the second region would start preparing reports in early 2021 in order for them to be submitted by 15 December 2021 and examined by the Committee at the 17.COM, and so on for the other four regions until a full cycle was completed at the 21.COM in 2026. Thus, in this proposal, the regional cycle of national reporting would be six years on the basis of a region-by-region rotation. The Committee would decide on the order of examination by electoral groups for each six-year regional cycle at the beginning of the cycle, bearing in mind that each cycle lasts six years. The decision for the first regional cycle would be taken in 2018 during the 13.COM in Mauritius. The Committee could dedicate one year to each electoral group, or another possibility would be to group two regions, Electoral Group I and II, as is the case for periodic reporting under the World Heritage Convention. In this scenario, the sixth year could be foreseen as a year of reflection,