Our Mission

Our objective is to make available on a single internet web site, data already gathered on all the existing cultures in Laos and to add to them freshly collected data from all 18 provinces of Laos. This data include ethnography, ecology, health, economy and past and present development programs. The organization of the Ethnographic Data Bank of Laos (E.D.B.L.) project aims at providing a variety of users with a complete range of information on any group in the LAO P.D.R. A project such as the Ethnographic Data Bank of Laos needs to be supported by a real faith in a change for the better of the preservation of the intangible heritage and bio-diversity and the setting up of sustainable development. The Data Bank aims to provide tools to the primary actors in these fields.

Preservation of the intangible heritage of Laos and its cultural diversity

The ethnographic perspective of the bank has a great advantage in that it enables the preservation of raw data in the form of video or sound clips and digital pictures. The commentary to introduce them will not preclude further detailed studies even when the ritual, the ceremony or the style of costume may have already disappeared. In this respect the bank will fully take care of intangible heritage.

Access of government and administration officials, development agencies and NGOs to common, reliable information on the actual populations of Laos, in order for them to make policy and its implementation easier. It will also make the task of the officials and NGOs more pragmatic than before because they will have a better understanding of the needs of the local populations, and their reactions to innovation. In the E.D.B.L. ultimate perspective we want to provide planners with reasonable predictions, assuming that human factors ought to be estimated at the same level of accuracy we expect from the study of soil, vegetation or climate.

Increased capacity of both the Information and Documentation Center of the National Academy of Social Sciences (N.A.S.S.) researchers and the local cultural officers in their provinces

Only one permanent institution such as the Information and Documentation Center of the National Academy of Social Sciences can undertake the the complete gathering of all existing data and collect new data through fieldwork in order to provide this knowledge to managers of development in one place.

The local officers of culture can benefit from the assistance of the data bank in their duty to protect the intangible heritage in their jurisdiction. As soon as they have an internet connection, they have access to the data in the bank. As such they become natural advisers in implementing new policy or sustainable development programs in their region.

Staff

Information and Documentation Center
National Academy of Social Sciences

Location

Information and Documentation Center
National Academy of Social Sciences
Khouvieng road, Simuang village, Sisattanak district,
Vientiane Capital, Lao P.D.R.
P.O. Box 4289
Tel.: (856-21)263098
Fax: (856-21)900814

Donors & Benefactors

The Rockefeller Foundation

Centre on the Anthropology of South China and the Indochinese Peninsula (C.A.C.S.P.I.)

UNESCO