Valuing Intangible Cultural Heritage in Developing Countries

The disappearance of intangible cultural heritages (ICHs) together with associated symbols and meanings in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) undermines 2003 UN Convention for Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage. To contribute to reversing this trend, present study estimates economic value preserving traditional kente weaving interpretation by establishing national demonstration centers Ghana. Contingent valuation (CV) surveys both public weavers are used elicit their preferences these centers. As CV heritage have often been criticized lacking policy payment consequentiality, we a specific preservation measure non-voluntary vehicle make decision context realistic consequential. Households show significant, positive mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) preserve technique symbols. Furthermore, find no distance decay WTP ICH; indicating that people strong ICH independent how far they live from center activities. This leads larger aggregated benefits compared built local environmental goods, example, where occurs many cases. makes net an economically worthwhile investment. implication results is higher investments ICHs can be justified not only perspective, but also point view.