Intangible culture is at the very heart of development in Africa. Greetings and salutations are therapeutic, as considerable energy is invested into greetings and questions about an individual’s welfare. Dress carries a message from the person wearing it, as it demonstrates the state of the mind of the person. Music features prominently at every stage of the life of the individual: there is music when a woman conceives, music at the birth of a child, music at wedding and music at death and funeral celebrations. The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was an answer to the prayers of Africans for the protection and preservation of the important and yet intangible cultural heritage with immense impact on the individual, community and people in general. Embraced with enthusiasm, the convention dominated discourse was well received. Urbanization, competition with the tangible cultural heritage, poverty and sometimes differences between political leaders and policy makers have adversely affected the performance of Africans in the implementation of the 2003 Convention, as demonstrated in this paper.