Since its inception in 2006, the Cross-Cultural Foundation of Uganda (CCFU) noted very limited professional heritage expertise in the culture sector. In Uganda, both private and public universities do not offer fully fledged degree courses and therefore those with professional qualifications in heritage were trained outside the country. Over the past 14 years, CCFU has carried out trainings for development partners and designed training manuals on heritage preservation and promotion, but soon realized this was not sufficient. In 2017 CCFU, in consultation with partner universities, applied for assistance from UNESCO’s ICH International Assistance Fund to design a degree course on ICH and Sustainable Development for universities in Uganda. As the coordinating organisation, CCFU ensured that representatives from four universities, the Ministry of Education and Sports, the Uganda National Commission for UNESCO, the Department of Culture and Family Affairs, as well as the National Council for Higher Education formed a Steering Committee and working groups that were responsible for designing the university course syllabus. Emily Drani talks about inter-regional field experiences on curriculum development in Uganda. \n\nMS. EMILY DRANI is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Cross-Cultural Foundation of Uganda, an organisation dedicated to promoting the value of ‘culture in development’ approach. She holds a Master of Philosophy in Development Studies with a focus on Endogenous Development.

In introducing the background of building ichLinks as the Asia-Pacific ICH information sharing platform, its core values and objectives, implementation schemes, and expected effects are explained. ichLinks plans to serve as a common ground for all the participating Member States to connect with each other. ICHCAP plans to form a one-stop integrated online service platform and an expanded platform based on the participation of Member States by establishing an Executive Committee led by partner organizations from participating Member States for efficient platform operation. In addition, ICHCAP support will address differences and deficiencies resulting from different technological conditions among nations. These actions would help participating states and partner organizations voluntarily and actively using the platform and continue to create new value through multilateral information sharing, exchange, and cooperation. Information and content shared through ichLinks can be constantly recreated and reused as online and offline resources in areas, e.g. festivals, exhibitions, research, and tourism.