Safeguarding Cultural Work

Australia’s independent NGO framework for recognising and safeguarding cultural contribution in line with international conventions

Why Safeguarding Matters

Cultural knowledge, skills, and practices do not continue simply because they exist.
They endure when there are systems that recognise them, support their transmission, and protect their integrity over time.

Internationally, this responsibility is articulated through treaty-based frameworks that recognise intangible cultural heritage as living work — carried through practice, taught through doing, and sustained by people and communities rather than institutions alone.

Australia is a signatory to the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. That Convention establishes a shared understanding that cultural practices and skills should be recognised, documented appropriately, and supported in ways that allow them to remain alive, adaptive, and locally grounded.

What has been less clearly understood — and less consistently implemented — is how this safeguarding is meant to operate in practice.

How Safeguarding Works Internationally

Under international frameworks, safeguarding is not delivered solely by governments.

It relies on civil-society infrastructure — organisations that can work directly with practitioners and communities, develop recognition mechanisms, and maintain standards without coercion or regulation.

In most countries where safeguarding functions well, this work is carried by:

• non-governmental organisations
• expert bodies
• sector-led institutions
• community-based systems of recognition

These bodies do not regulate culture.
They do not license practice.
They provide structures for recognition, continuity, and trust.

This is the model Australia committed to when it entered international conventions.

The Australian Context

In Australia, cultural work is widely relied upon across education, health, care, manufacturing, community development, and regional economies.

However, recognition of cultural contribution has largely remained fragmented — often dependent on funding programs, short-term initiatives, or sector-specific classifications that do not travel well across systems.

What has been missing is independent, civil-society infrastructure capable of:

• recognising cultural contribution consistently
• supporting provenance and attribution
• enabling continuity across sectors
• aligning with international safeguarding expectations

This gap is structural, not cultural.

The Role of the Creative Women’s Association

The Creative Women’s Association operates as an independent, non-governmental organisation providing that missing infrastructure.

CWA does not replace government.
CWA does not act on behalf of government.
CWA does not regulate or control cultural practice.

Instead, CWA maintains a Commons Framework that enables cultural work to be recognised, safeguarded, and carried forward through shared standards and voluntary participation.

This work is practical, operational, and already in use.

The Commons Framework: A Safeguarding System in Practice

The Commons Framework is a non-statutory system designed to sit between community practice and institutional recognition.

It provides a way for cultural work to be:

• clearly identified
• attributed to its authors and custodians
• recognised across sectors
• carried forward without being extracted or frozen

Safeguarding within the Commons Framework occurs through recognition, not enforcement.

Participation is voluntary.
Standards are shared.
Authority rests with practice, not permission.

This reflects how safeguarding functions internationally.

The Commons Seal

The Commons Seal is the recognition mechanism within the Commons Framework.

It is applied to defined cultural contributions — not automatically to individuals or organisations — and indicates that a contribution has been:

• clearly described and attributable
• reviewed against shared standards
• recognised as carrying cultural value

The Commons Seal does not license practice, grant exclusivity, or confer ownership.

It functions as a provenance and safeguarding marker, allowing cultural work to be recognised across education, industry, policy, and international contexts while remaining living and locally grounded.

Australia’s Treaty Commitments and Shared Responsibility

Australia’s participation in international cultural heritage conventions reflects a clear and ongoing commitment to safeguarding living cultural knowledge, skills, and practices.

These treaties recognise that safeguarding is not a one-off act, nor a function that can be discharged through legislation alone. They rely on practical, civil-society mechanisms that operate alongside government — capable of engaging practitioners, recognising contribution, and supporting continuity over time.

In Australia, the absence of independent safeguarding infrastructure has been largely an oversight of implementation, rather than intent. The commitments exist. The mechanisms to carry them into daily practice have been less visible.

This matters because safeguarding only functions when it is operational.

By establishing clear recognition systems, shared standards, and voluntary participation pathways, the Creative Women’s Association makes this gap visible — and workable.

Visibility changes the conversation.
Once cultural contribution can be identified, attributed, and recognised consistently, it becomes possible to act with clarity and responsibility.

This creates a constructive basis for collaboration:

• between civil society and government
• between practitioners and institutions
• between national practice and international frameworks

Safeguarding works best when responsibility is shared, roles are clear, and systems are in place to support action — not when culture is left to be carried invisibly.

The Commons Framework exists to do that work now, in good faith, and in alignment with the intent of Australia’s treaty commitments.

Shadow Implementation Audit — National Cultural Policy (Revive)

The Creative Women’s Association has prepared an independent Shadow Implementation Audit of Australia’s National Cultural Policy, Revive: a place for every story, a story for every place.

As Australia’s national cultural policy, Revive is expected to operate not only as a statement of intent, but as an implementation framework capable of delivering workforce sustainability and safeguarding outcomes in line with Australia’s obligations under the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003).

This audit applies a repeatable infrastructure test to assess whether Revive has implemented the institutional, administrative, and workforce mechanisms required to operationalise safeguarding, provenance protection, and cultural continuity.

The findings identify a structural implementation gap between policy ambition and delivery architecture, with implications for workforce sustainability, safeguarding of cultural practice, and long-term cultural continuity.

Read the full audit:
Shadow Implementation Audit of Australia’s National Cultural Policy — Revive (PDF)