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- intangible cultural heritage is promoted it would be done at the cost of another because there is so much heritage. Every region, village and city has its own history so when we look at some of these criteria, it could not be promoted without harming another, and hence the complexity of the issues faced by India in the implementation of these criteria. As an outgoing member of the Committee, the delegation thanked everyone for the excellent opportunity.
- 332. The Secretary thanked the floor for the many positive comments and for the very relevant points raised - especially by India, the Philippines and the Netherlands - that pointed directly to the challenge of establishing a results framework of a Convention. It was known how to create results frameworks for projects and programmes, but to capture the activities of so many stakeholders of such different contexts and countries, and sizes, scales and relationships to intangible cultural heritage was indeed a hugely ambitious undertaking, and of course the targets constantly evolve. Thus, the question by the Netherlands, which brought up the issues raised by both the Philippines and India, was whether it was necessary for a State Party to address every indicator. As discussed in China, the answer was ' not necessarily ', although ideally they could. However, the Secretariat had realized the vastness of the undertaking and therefore the results framework was a step forward in the right direction. In response to India 's question about privileging one element of intangible cultural heritage over another, the Secretary explained that this was precisely why the results framework was not element-focused and whether an element was or was not inscribed. The aim was to capture the overall efforts made by States. It had been deliberately designed to be iterative with structures other than, for example, the Ministry of Culture, because it takes into the account the Operational Directives on sustainable development and the understanding that intangible cultural heritage is related to other aspects of life. In short, it was not expected that every indicator in the first round would be relevant to every country in the same way. Some countries would even find it difficult to address certain indicators because they may not be relevant, but it was based on a constantly evolving situation. With regard to requests for capacity building, the Secretary explained that the overall results framework was conceived to address the problems in periodic reporting, not only in the low submission rate of periodic reporting but also in terms of content, which tended to list activities or the elements inscribed. Recognizing the need for sustained and continual capacity building and linking it with periodic reporting was the reason behind the practical proposal to move towards reporting on a regional cycle. The example was provided by the World Heritage Convention where periodic reports were carried out on a region-by-region basis, allowing countries to get together to think about the issues and share experiences, which also allowed the Secretariat to work with its field offices and regional offices to support that process.
- 333. The Secretary further explained that this process was difficult to manage when it was based on a ratification calendar with countries in the same year coming from different regions. The Secretary wished to reassure States Parties that this framework was not meant to be strictly followed, as not all indicators were equally relevant to each situation. The aim was to capture a situation that was both global and extremely diverse. Latvia 's question was also very pertinent and complex in where one starts with the baselines. The Secretary referred to the remarks by China, adding that it had indeed informally reflected on this issue. The Secretary explained that it would be difficult to start from the point of ratification of the Convention, which would mean reverting back and understanding where each country stood at that time. Thus, following some of the discussion with the experts, the way forward tended towards letting countries set their own baselines and targets in relation to their own situations, as the new periodic reporting was rolled out. This would essentially mean that it would take a full six-year cycle to obtain a global picture, but it would also capture the diversity of needs, allowing each country to effectively use the periodic reporting not only to report but to set its own system of projections, i.e., where it wished to be in six years ' time . Turning to the question raised by Colombia, and how to communicate to people who do not use a results- based language or who are not in that field of work, the Secretary explained that some of the indicators did in fact speak to them. However, communication would indeed need to be determined in that sense. Ultimately, the reports would be collated by people who understand this kind of language. The challenge for countries, and particularly large countries, would be