Handbook on Cultural Heritage and Local Development for African Local Governments Published

The handbook "Cultural heritage and local development: A Guide for African local governments" was created in response to the request formulated during the special session 'African Towns and Heritage', organised by the World Heritage Centre and the France-UNESCO Co-operation agreement at the Summit Africities 3 (Yaounde, Cameroon, December 2003).

This guide was designed as a tool to help with the decision-making process in matters dealing with culture and heritage in sub-Saharan African countries.

It is structured in three parts:

• A thoroughly illustrated "definitions" chapter, providing answers to questions dealing with the definition of heritage, and more particularly, the African heritage
• A second chapter is dedicated to the links existing between the heritage resources and the development of the territory; it tackles the following questions: why should we be interested in heritage? How can we integrate heritage into regional planning policies? How can we reconcile heritage and modernity?
• A third part gives indications for the implementation of a development policy which integrates cultural heritage and provides a series of examples of operations.
• This handbook is the result of the vast involvement and participation of several African professionals. A call for participation was issued on the African continent for more than 250 professionals in the field of culture to contribute on a number of selected topics.

Written with the support of the World Heritage Centre, the Ecole du Patrimoine Africain(EPA), the EAMAU (Ecole Africaine des Métiers de l'Architecture et de l'Urbanisme, Lomé, Togo) and the Municipal Development Programme (PDM), this handbook is co-edited by the France-UNESCO Cooperation Agreement and CRATerre-ENSAG.