Nairobi county ward administrators attend the UNESCO-ASCHERG programme sensitization meeting aimed at strengthening the cultural sector.

Nairobi, 28th April 2024

Nairobi County, City Culture, Arts and Tourism sub sector in partnership with UNESCO and The GoDown Arts Center held a training forum for 35 ward administrators, 52 culture and tourism officers from the 17 sub counties as part of efforts towards strengthening the cultural sector by putting in place strong regulatory frameworks, asset mapping and capacity building through the UNESCO-ASCHERG program.

The program which is funded by the Kingdom of Norway through UNESCO was initiated after the County government submitted a proposal to the call for project by the organisation in 2022. It seeks to gather consistent data on the Status of the culture and heritage assets in the county and enhance policy and legislation in that regard.
The Deputy Director for Culture Ms. Stellah Kemunto said, "The County is committed to the protection, promotion and safe guarding of all types of culture, heritage and creativity. We are working to ensure that all creative talents and our culture is preserved and that's why we put in a proposal to UNESCO to facilitate with the data collection process which will help us support our creatives more and thereafter gain economic boost as a sector."

Ms. Judith Ogana programme officer for Culture, UNESCO said," we are delighted to partner with Nairobi County and GoDown arts Centre because we are extremely invested in data collection for the benefit of understanding what the county has to offer as far as culture and tourism are concerned. Today we hope that with the understanding of this project we will be able to support the people on the ground to continue with this fact finding process of data collection and thereafter analyzing it for the purposes of improving our cultural heritage."
Also present was the Executive Director GoDown Arts Centre Ms. Joy Mboya who expressed the importance of the project in identifying the opportunities available not only for the county's creative economy development but also for the purposes of strengthening policy.

Said Ms Mboya, "we want to begin by mapping out all the cultural and tourism products within the county so that we can enhance them and boost more job creation for the residents of Nairobi. We acknowledge that this county has cultural assets sitting at the ward level thus the need to capacity build the administrators who are at the grass root level to put in the effort that will help us preserve our culture, heritage and tourism opportunities.

As part of this project, the team will employ a structured framework for gathering and mapping all cultural statistics with the objective of building on the existing regulatory framework.

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