The UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage is from 2003. In 2012, the Kingdom of the Netherlands officially ratified this convention. Since then, Aruba, Curaçao, the Netherlands, Sint Maarten, and the public entities of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius have been working on the implementation of the convention. One of the ways they are doing this is by creating inventories. On all islands and in the Netherlands hundreds of groups are working hard to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage for the future.

Capacity building

The Kingdom previously donated an earmarked contribution to the Fund for Intangible Cultural Heritage of this UNESCO Convention. This was for the project "Strengthening the capacities of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius and Suriname to implement the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The trainings took place every year:

2013: Aruba

2014: Sint Maarten

2015: Curaçao

2016: Curaçao

2017: Bonaire

2018: Paramaribo

During these meetings, attention was paid to different parts of the implementation of the Convention, such as: the operational directives of the Convention, preparing heritage safeguarding plans, community based inventorying and the drawing up of policy frameworks. During the trainings, it was also possible for the participants to exchange experience and knowledge. The Netherlands Knowledge Center for Intangible Heritage (KIEN) also attended all the meetings.

Dutch Caribbean Committee for Intangible Cultural Heritage

In 2016, the six islands enact a collaboration agreement to enhance the exchange of knowledge and experience and to make it easier to stay in touch with each other. The Dutch Caribbean ICH Committee is born.
It consists of representatives from Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Maarten, and Sint Eustatius. The cooperation with the Netherlands and Suriname is good; there is regular mutual consultation.

How to proceed?

In 2018 Richenel Ansano, secretary of the Dutch Caribbean ICH Committee, researched how the six islands of the former Netherlands Antilles were doing with the implementation of the 2003 UNESCO Convention. The research was commissioned by KIEN.

This research produced a report with recommendations. One of the recommendations was that the six islands should enter into a cooperation agreement with each other. And, that the four countries in the Kingdom (Aruba, Curaçao, Netherlands and St. Maarten) should enter a similar agreement with each other as well. The subject of the agreements was the further implementation of the 2003 UNESCO Convention. On February 8, 2019, a first step for this was taken when the ministers of the four countries signed a declaration of intent on the subject.