UCLG-MEWA Committee on Culture and Tourism, held its first Presidency Meeting for the term 2022-2025 and the “Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop for Cities” on October 20-22 in Balıkesir Türkiye. Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality was elected as the President of UCLG-MEWA Committee on Culture and Tourism at the UCLG-MEWA Congress 2022 in Konya Türkiye.
Presidency Meeting: 3-Year Culture-Tourism Road Map
On October 20, 2022, the Presidency of the Committee came together at the meeting hosted by the Chair of the Committee, Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality, to evaluate the policy document, the reference document of the committee, and the activities conducted between 2019-2022, and to draw the road map for 2022-2025.
Chaired by Yücel Yılmaz, Mayor of Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality, the meeting was participated by Nidai Güngördü, Mayor of Kyrenia and Hani N. A. Abdalmasih, Mayor of Beit Sahour, Mehmet Duman, UCLG-NEWA Secretary General and representatives from Mersin and Şanlıurfa metropolitan municipalities. The importance of the role of local governments in the protection and preservation of the cultural heritage of the Middle East and West Asia Region, the richest region of the world in terms of cultural heritage, was once again emphasized by the Presidency of the Committee. It was stated that the momentum gained with the Accessible Tourism Workshop hosted by Kyrenia Municipality, the Committee Chair of the period in 2021, will continue in this term.
Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop for Cities
Following the meeting of the Presidency of the Committee, “Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop for Cities”, the first event of the new working period of UCLG-MEWA Committee on Culture and Tourism, was organized on October 21-22, hosted by Balıkesir Metropolitan Municipality in cooperation with Turkish National Commission for UNESCO. The workshop was participated by the leading local governments, academics and NGOs dedicated to the field of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), the “ICH and Cities” panel was held and examples of good practices on ICH were shared by local governments’ representatives from the MEWA Region.
In line with the issues discussed within the scope of the workshop, round table meetings were organized in the last session of the workshop in order to provide direct resources for the output document envisaged to be prepared to guide the cities in their works on ICH. The participants gathered at four different tables and discussed “Intergenerational Transmission in Sustaining ICH” at the first table, “ICH and Local Governments” at the second table, “ICH and Social Change in the Context of Migration” at the third table, and “Economic Dimension of ICH” at the fourth table. The first day of the workshop, ended with the ‘Barana’ a traditional folk performance, specific to the Balıkesir region, technical visits to important places in Balıkesir such as ‘Zağnos Paşa’ Mosque and ‘Balmek’ Balıkesir Vocational Training Workshops were organized on the second day of the workshop.
UCLG-MEWA Committee on Culture and Tourism, which took the first step in its work for the 2022-2025 term with the three-day Balıkesir program, will continue to carry out advocacy work and support local governments in the MEWA Region in fields such as local cultural service delivery, sustaining cultural heritage, cultural rights, and sustainable tourism in the new term.