Lower Valley of the Omo

• Erosion and siltation/ deposition
• Development projects
• Housing
• Industrial areas
• Land conversion
• Absence of established boundary

Total amount granted: 400,000 euros from European Union (project launched in 2016)

On 27 December 2022, the State Party submitted a state of conservation report, which is available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/17/documents/ and reported on the progress made on the number of issues requested by the World Heritage Committee at its extended 44th session (Fuzhou/online, 2021), as follows:

• Boundaries demarcation of the World Heritage property, using a digital map, to determine the property area and the buffer zone were in progress;
• Revision of the Environmental Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) and a public community consultation process for the sustainability of the Kuraz Sugar Development Project (KSDP) were conducted, using the guidelines of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) Commission of Forest, Environment, and Climate Change and that of the World Bank;
• Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) on new developments to mitigate the negative impact on the Outstanding Universal value (OUV) of the property to be updated, taking into consideration the property as well as the proposed ancillary development activities of the Kuraz Sugar Development Project (KSDP);
• Development of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) on the potential impact of the KSDP and its development activities on the Lake Turkana Basin for both States Parties of Ethiopia and Kenya to look at the impact on both World Heritage properties of the Lower Valley of the Omo (Ethiopia) and Lake Turkana (Kenya).

The State Party also submitted the location map of the Lower Omo Valley, and the text of the revised ESIA study and the validation process of the KSDP project through a public consultation process to justify the decision taken regarding the activities in the area.

The location maps of the property submitted by the State Party are welcome. These are the outcomes of a European Union (EU) funded project begun in 2014, which was undertaken with the involvement of the Ethiopian Geo-spatial Agency and Federal and Regional stakeholders.

The need to establish a clear map of the Lower Omo Valley World Heritage has long been a concern of the Committee who also requested that these maps should be based on an assessment of fossil-bearing sediments, in order to more clearly define areas of potential archaeological importance. The 2015 mission also recommended that management strategies should respect a visually coherent landscape with no development between visible outcrops. The maps so far submitted are at a small scale and before the proposed boundaries can be reviewed larger more detailed maps need to be provided together with evidence from surveys upon which they are based and related protection and management proposals.

The State Party has updated the ESIA in the light of changes to the project and included a consultation process on the sustainability of the KSDP and its social and economic impacts and benefits. The ESIA includes proposed measures and mitigate negative environmental impacts of the project. As requested by the Committee in Decision 44 COM 7B.4, the ESIA will be reviewed by the Advisory Bodies.

It is also pointed out that the State Party will update the HIA developed in 2017 on the basis of the proposed boundary delineation. It is recommended that the Committee take note and reiterate its Decision 44 COM 7B.4 that requests the State Party to submit details of the revised HIA.

In view of assessing the potential impacts of the Gibe III dam and Kuraz project on the Lake Turkana basin, the States Parties of Kenya and Ethiopia are encouraged to continue the dialogue with the view to undertaking a joint SEA on both the Lower Omo Valley and Lake Turkana World Heritage properties. It is noted that the State Party of Ethiopia is uncertain about the feasibility of such a study considering the different Outstanding Universal Values of the two properties concerned and their different categories – one natural and one cultural. The Committee may wish to clarify that the SEA should identify potential impacts on the natural and cultural attributes of both properties. As progress with the SEA process appears to have stalled since 2017, the Committee may wish to express its concern and to urge both States Parties to continue the dialogue and accelerate the process, based on the established mechanism of the Joint Technical Experts Panel (JTEP). The World Heritage Centre, IUCN and ICOMOS stand ready to support the process with generous financial support from the Government of Norway.

Finally, it is recommended that the Committee reiterates its request to the State Party to implement the other requests in Decision 44 COM 7B.4.