Historic Town of Zabid

• Serious deterioration of the built heritage (a high percentage of the residential houses being replaced by concrete and multi-storey buildings);
• The remaining  houses in the city are rapidly deteriorating, due to the prevailing low income of the inhabitants;
• Since the souq activities have been transferred outside the city, the ancient souq is almost empty and free from any type of activity and the shops are falling apart;
• The traditional economic role of the city has vanished;
• The city in general, is lacking any conservation and rehabilitation strategies.

Adopted ; See page https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/4357

Adopted; see page https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/1282

Adopted, see page https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/1282

Total amount granted: USD 14,000 from the Italian Funds-in-Trust and the France-UNESCO Co-operation Agreement.

On 31 January 2015, the State Party submitted a state of conservation report, a summary of which is available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/611/documents/.

The State Party reports that Yemen continues to suffer significant political and socio-economic disturbances, which affect the heritage preservation and development.

However, the State Party reports that, despite scarce available resources, the Ministry of Culture has endeavoured to exercise its responsibilities for the protection of cultural heritage, particularly places located within the boundaries of the property, in response to Decision 38 COM 7A.13 of the World Heritage Committee (Doha, 2014).

The Ministry of Culture, represented by the General Organization for the Preservation of Historic Cities in Yemen (GOPHCY) in collaboration with the German Agency for International Corporation (GIZ), has prepared a draft “National Strategy for the Preservation of the Historic Cities, Sites and Monuments 2016 – 2020”, (Republic of Yemen, Ministry of Culture, GOPHCY).

During 2015, it is proposed that an Action Plan be developed in line with the strategic objectives of the Strategy. The Strategy is also seen as a key document for attracting much needed resources.

Other conservation activities have been undertaken, including:

• continuing implementation of the infrastructure projects such as road stone pavement construction, and traditional building maintenance;
• installation and maintenance of services;
• restoration works at two historic mosques in Zabid;
• establishment of a fund for rehabilitation of five private traditional buildings; and
• progress with the restoration of two historic schools.

The State Party further reports that meetings have occurred with the community and that GIZ has also contributed to cooperative meetings with the Zabid urban development forum to elaborate plans for greater community awareness.

The State Party acknowledges the continued support received from GIZ and the ongoing pilot project funded by the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage (ARC-WH), the  Category 2 Centre established in Bahrain. It has also called on the wider international community to offer further support for preventing deterioration and facilitating sustainable development.

The State Party reports that it submitted two years ago clarification on the boundaries of the property at the time of inscription, but has not finalized the buffer zone or submitted a minor boundary modification request.

The State Party acknowledges that limited progress has been made towards the Desired state of conservation for removal from of the property from the List of World Heritage in Danger (DSOCR), but expresses continuing commitment including proposed involvement of the Higher Ministerial Coordination Committee for Zabid.

The State Party has not yet started implementing the International Assistance Request on “Community participation programme for better conservation process” (IA2014-2664) because of the current situation but intends to initiate it as soon as possible with local resources.

The preparation of the draft: “National Strategy for the Preservation of the Historic Cities, Sites and Monuments 2016 – 2020” is welcome, as are its specific preservation provisions and strategic objectives, which include:

• Improving the legal and legislative environment,
• Improving the institutional setup,
• Capacity building of human resources,
• Activating the conservation and protection processes to apply the requirements of the World Heritage Convention,
• Assuring and diversifying the funding resources,
• Raising awareness and the community participation,
• Encouraging the economic activities and developing traditional handicrafts products,
• Developing the joint work with the concerned institutions and authorities.

The strategic objectives of this national strategy align with elements of the ‘Urgent Action Plan’ and DSOCR previously adopted by the World Heritage Committee for Zabid. During 2015, there will be an action plan derived from the strategic objectives of the National Strategy. Once the Action plan has been compiled, the Strategy will be adopted in 2016. However, without both political support and substantial allocation of public-sector resources, implementation of these objectives is likely to prove difficult.

In the report submitted in 2014, the State Party reported that Bylaw regulations to support the Law of Protection of historic sites, monuments, cities and their urban and cultural heritage that was adopted in 2013 would be prepared but these have not been submitted and there appears to have been no substantive implementation of these statutes.

The political and security situation in Yemen continues to provide an extremely challenging context for heritage preservation and it is to be commended that notwithstanding these great difficulties some progress has been made with small scale conservation initiatives and with discussion on how to foster greater engagement of the local communities. 

There remains an urgent need to ensure that this incremental progress continues in order to reverse decline in the city and to ensure that the valuable work undertaken so far is not reversed. It would be desirable for a further Reactive Monitoring mission to visit the property and consider progress with the corrective measures as soon as the situation allows.