International Fund for Cultural Diversity

The availability of resources for implementing policy measures and for taking concrete actions in order to reach the objectives laid down in a standard-setting instrument can be considered as crucial. It is one thing to set political goals and to define measures and instruments to that end. It is another to create the material conditions to put these into practice and to move ahead. Therefore, whether a fund is established in the framework of a convention is seen by many as a touchstone for how seriously parties are engaged in the issue they are negotiating. During the negotiation of UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (CSICH) of 2003, when some developed countries tried to avoid compulsory contributions to the fund which was being established in that convention, developing countries reacted by placing the interest of these countries in the issues of the CSICH as a whole into question.