Parliament's foreign affairs committee has discussed the work of the Regional Centre for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in South-Eastern Europe, which is based in Sofia and operates under the auspices of UNESCO. The centre's executive director, Dr Irena Todorova, presented a report to MPs.
Todorova said the centre represents 17 countries and is one of eight such centres in the world. Its status is unusual. It is not an administrative unit of UNESCO and has no direct link to the organisation, but it has a mandate and policies to act under UNESCO rules. The host state is responsible for its budget, office, mandate and activities.
The centre builds up expert capacity and runs training courses every year based on UNESCO criteria. It also holds a general assembly each year with representatives of all 17 countries, many of them from foreign ministries, culture ministries and national UNESCO commissions. The assembly approves plans and policies for the following year.
The centre's magazine "Living Heritage" comes out once a year, not twice, in two languages, and covers the work of all member countries. The centre seeks to promote dialogue between cultures, but it does not carry out research or analysis.
Todorova said such centres boost UNESCO's cultural diplomacy through multinational nominations, meaning joint entries on the organisation's representative lists. The martenitsa is one such nomination, shared by Bulgaria and three other countries. It makes the heritage open to all and valuable to the world, but does not take away its character as a national identity and practice in each country.
Todorova believes the centre contributes to Bulgaria's cultural diplomacy and foreign policy.