Ghana, UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage

Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from, religion, language, social habits, cuisine, clothing, proverbs, sculpture, painting, music, and the arts.

Culture gives us a connection to our beliefs, customs and social values.  

Ghanaian culture is known worldwide as perhaps the most unique and buoyant in West Africa.

Our ethnic diversity, history, the encounter with Europeans during the colonial era, our forts and castles, the enslavement of our people, “the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa” mantra, the Diaspora and the Year of Return and many more iconic signposts have given Ghana a cultural heritage that has contributed in making her the preferred tourist destination in West Africa.

Properly planned and executed, the cultural economy can provide employment opportunities for the youth and become a cash-cow for the economy in general. 
 

Intangible Cultural Heritage

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), there are three related UNESCO Conventions on Culture and Heritage namely, Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972), Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003), Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005) that seek to protect the cultural heritage of  member states of UNESCO.

These conventions described above, allow Ghana as a State, to list elements in our culture that we regard as part of our intangible cultural heritage.

Intangible cultural heritage are “the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups, in some cases, individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage” and include goods and services.  

To us, culture also deals with certain vital aspects of our heritage such as gesture in communication, code of dressing, music and dance, rhythms and songs, handicraft (weaving, sculpture, pottery), religion, proverbs and idioms.  

Indeed, Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is a collective practice, transmitted from generation to generation, particularly from the older to younger generation. 
 

 Youth 

The youth of today are the bridge between the present and future generations.

And therefore, any meaningful attempt to safeguard the elements of our intangible cultural heritage must deeply engage the youth in cultural activities.

The lack of cultural awareness education and the Eurocentric view of the social sciences in our public schools have deprived the youth of their cultural heritage and reduced their self-esteem.

Unemployment is very high among today’s youth and many university graduates go after non-existent jobs in the public sector.

Today, many young women and women believe that the only way to make it in life is to travel abroad to seek  greener pastures.  

In recent times, safeguarding the many facets of culture has become imperative to the development of nations around the globe, due to the benefits that can be derived by member states of UNESCO.

Proper safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage must therefore engage the youth in the various activities related to intangible cultural heritage, such as music and dance, rhythms and songs, handicraft (weaving, sculpture, pottery), etc.

Intangible cultural heritage presents to us a plethora of income-generating avenues and platforms for the 21st century and beyond.

There is therefore the need to develop programmes that will ignite the interest of the youth and to draw their attention in the direction of these numerous opportunities for life-changing engagements in order to create their own businesses as cultural entrepreneurs. 
 

Obligations, actors 

Ghana is home to diverse cultural heritage.

Given our ethnic diversity, which has given rise to the multiplicity of practices, expressions, instruments, music, etc., some questions that readily come to mind are:  

What practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills, instruments, artifacts of the Ghanaian culture is the National Folklore Board going to list on the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage platform?

Is it our music, sculpture, food, etc.?

If it is music, can we list our folk, traditional music?

If it is food, is it going to be fufu, akpele, jollof, akyeke, etc.?

If it is fashion, are we going to list Fugu, kente, the adinkra symbols, etc.?

Another important question is: To what extent have the implementers of the project engaged the community in all the 16 regions of Ghana to define and draw up a national inventory? 

In order to bring coherence into the preparation of a comprehensive, representative list of intangible cultural heritage of Ghana, it will be necessary to organise an intra-agency dialogue to interrogate what each of the agencies under the ministry can contribute to the intangible cultural heritage project.

For example, I can see the Hotel Catering and Tourism Training Institute playing an important role in the effort to introduce Ghanaian food and local beverages such as “asana” and “sobolo” in the hotels.  

Perhaps, a stakeholders meeting of all the agencies under the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture will be required to collect ideas and opinions about the current status of intangible cultural heritage in Ghana.

The stakeholders meeting, under the direction of the National Folklore Board, must adopt a regional approach and prepare a template, indicating a horizontal grid of the 16 regions of Ghana with a corresponding vertical grid, showing elements of the intangible cultural heritage elements that can be found in each region. 
     

Intra- agency consultation, dialogue  

The Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture executes its mandate through implementing agencies and currently has 13 agencies as its main frontline and key implementing agencies.

And these are, the Ghana Tourism Authority, Ghana Museums and Monuments Board, National Theatre of Ghana, National Commission on Culture, Ghana Tourism Development Company, Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, W.E.B. Dubois Center, Hotel Catering and Tourism Training Institute, Bureau of Ghana Languages, National Folklore Board, Pan African Writers Association, National Film Authority and the Creative Arts Agency.  

A few civil society and non-profit organisations engage in project implementation on the sideline.

Owing to the similarity of the objectives and functions of some of the agencies under the MOTAC, duplication sometimes occurs in their implementation strategies.

For example, our festivals are expressions of intangible cultural heritage and the Ghana Tourism Authority has a website that lists the various festivals celebrated in Ghana.

And therefore it might not be necessary for the National Folklore Board to compile another list of festivals.  

The two agencies must compare notes on festivals of Ghana in order to avoid duplication.  
 

Take politics out of culture

Whenever you have a multiplicity of actors in policy implementation, as we now do under the MOTAC, the agencies tend to compete for the limited resources available to the ministry.

Distribution and allotment of the resources to the various agencies could be influenced by politics and bureaucratic protectionism, fuelled by competition to attract resources from the parent ministry and donor agencies.

When this happens, those agencies whose managers have the right political connections benefit the most.

In our view, the lead agency of the intangible cultural heritage project, the National Folklore Board, does not seem to have adequate resources to implement its mandate and must therefore be adequately resourced to carry out its mandate, specifically with regard to the intangible cultural heritage of Ghana.  

E-mail: vivivistudios@gmail.com