Deputy Minister for Cultural Affairs and Tourism, Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, Lance Gbargonyon, has underscored the need to detach the cultural sector from the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism.
Minister Gbargonyon stated that the information sector of the ministry has taken over the cultural component, and the sector has therefore not received its relevance in the society.
Minister Gbargonyon made the disclosure Wednesday at the start of a three-day workshop for Anglophone countries under the Abuja Regional Office on Intangible Cultural Heritage Community-Based Inventory, held in Monrovia.
According to him, intangible cultural heritage is important for the socio-economic development of Liberia.
He cited that music and acting are contributing tremendously to youth employment in countries where culture is considered a vibrant sector for the growth and development of the nation.
Minister Gbargonyon maintained that President George Manneh Weah has expressed concern about the cultural sector of Liberia, and the process of ratifying the international convention on culture is on-going at the House of Representatives.
He lauded the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for helping to strengthen the cultural sector of the country.
Minister Gbargonyon indicated that the 2003 UNESCO Convention for safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, which are six in number, will be ratified as soon as possible, adding that the convention will provide funding to enhance the cultural sector.
Minister Gbargonyon emphasized that the cultural sector has a great potential to create jobs for the youthful population of Liberia.
Meanwhile, the Director of the Abuja Regional Office, Dimitri Sanga, said safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage is critical to protecting the tradition and culture of member countries through research.
Director Sanga stated that UNESCO will support the research of experts on the culture of Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Liberia to transform and protect their respective intangible cultural heritage.
He noted that protecting the artifacts of the four states will go a long way in enhancing the cultural values of the region.
For his part, the Assistant Chief Cultural Officer of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, Nigeria, Emmanuel Odekanyin, said Nigeria is implementing the community-based inventory of the intangible cultural heritage.
Odekanyin stated that the intangible cultural heritage started from 2014 to 2017, and has been successful in three communities.
He indicated that Nigeria has been part of the UNESCO Convention since 2005, and hoped that other Anglophone countries would ratify the convention.
In a related development, the Executive Director of the National Folklure Board of Ghana, Bernice Ann-Deh Kumah, said the cultures of member countries are inter-related, and fostering collaboration will go a long way to improving and developing data collection in the sector.
Kumah stated that Ghana is collecting data of intangible cultural heritage from its 16 regions, and when completed it would be shared with other countries.
Also speaking, the Officer-In-Charge of UNESCO Monrovia, Stevenson Seidi, said the ratification of the UNESCO convention is vital for transformation of intangible cultural heritage in Liberia. Seidi noted that the ratification of the convention by the National Legislature will put Liberia in a position to protect its intangible cultural heritage.
He asserted that there are intangible cultural heritage which have not been recognized, such as the languages the people speak and their impact in the society.