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- total budget approved. Funds allocated to this budget would be specifically dedicated to capacity-building programmes, to the integration of intangible cultural heritage into development plans, policies and programmes with a particular focus on education, improving the management of knowledge information, and monitoring the Convention and promoting its objectives through awareness-raising and outreach. Budget lines 4, 5, 6 and 7 would be maintained in general at their respective percentages with slight changes in order to be better aligned with incoming obligations. The draft resolution in this document included the recommendation made by the Committee at its last session to authorize the Secretariat to make transfers between budget lines 4, 5 and 6 of up to 30 per cent of their initial total allocation. The purpose of this recommendation was to make better use of the funds in accordance with the necessities of each cycle. Of course, the Secretariat would inform both the Committee and the General Assembly about the details of such transfers should they ever take place.
- 215. The Secretary gave the example of the last biennium of the 38 C/5 when demands for the participation of States Parties, experts in the Committee, under budget line 5, exceeded the available resources allocated for this purpose. Therefore, requests had to be declined. At the same time, the budget allocation pertaining to financial assistance for the participation of Committee members, experts and representatives of NGOs remained partially unused. In total, some 25 per cent of all the funds allocated to these three lines remained unused during the last biennium. Thus, this recommendation would allow the Secretariat to assess the demands and make transfers to optimize its ability to reply positively to those requests. Finally, budget line 8, related to the Reserve Fund, reached a total amount of US$1M during the previous biennium and new allocations would be suspended from now on in accordance with Decision 10.COM 8 and Resolution 6.GA 9. Concluding, the Secretary brought the Assembly's attention to the fact that according to the latest report by the Bureau Financial Management of 30 April 2018, a total of US$428,209 of the assessed contributions due for years prior to 2018 remained unpaid. This represented 24 per cent of the total amount due for 2017. The Secretary and the Administrative Officer of the Culture Sector, Mr Abdelghani Baakrim, remained at the Assembly's disposal to resp ond to any questions.
- 216. The delegation of Spain congratulated the Chairperson on her election and on her able chairing of the deliberations. It expressed thanks to the Chairperson and to the Secretariat as it was pleased to note the need to use the International Assistance mechanism. This Convention could not afford to see this mechanism go underutilized, as was rightly pointed out by the Secretariat. It thus welcomed this initiative, as well as the increase in the budget. The delegation recalled that when it was a member of the Committee, it stressed time and again that perhaps the International Assistance mechanism had not been used much by States because it was excessively complicated to gather the required information. States had put a lot of effort into their files for nominations to the Lists and this was one of the reasons they had not been able to access the International Assistance mechanism. It further recalled that when it was on the Committee, requests for International Assistance were often rejected because of errors only of form and not of substance in the various criteria. The delegation reiterated its pleasure in this very simple solution and it hoped that this would encourage many States to make use of this mechanism when they presented their files.
- 217. The delegation of Japan thanked the Secretariat for the draft plan following the discussions at the twelfth session of the Committee. Japan believed that capacity-building should be a priority for the better functioning of the Convention, and it supported the draft plan and hoped that the Secretariat could respond in a timely and appropriate manner when countries request International Assistance in the future.
- 218. The delegation of Estonia thanked the Secretariat for the well-structured and informative document that clearly outlined the continuing underutilization of the funds dedicated to International Assistance when there was such a great need for resources and support to safeguard intangible heritage in many States Parties. Estonia understood the logic well, as well as the need to set up a dedicated International Assistance implementation team, reducing budget lines 1 and 2 in order to make it happen. It believed that this change would