The World Heritage Committee has expressed the need to have a more balanced World Heritage List, which should be representative of the diversity of the world natural and cultural heritage. Within this context and as a follow up of the Regional Seminar on Desert Landscapes organized in Egypt (Kharga Oasis, September 2001), which underlined the strong potential of desert sites for inclusion in the List, the World Heritage Centre would like to propose an activity concerning the site of Jebel Ouenat. Jebel Ouenat is located at the border between Egypt, Libya and Sudan and is an extremely important cultural and natural trans-boundary site for its geological interest and its prehistoric rock carving.
to identify the potential World Heritage values and boundaries of the site and to discuss the possibilities of its management and conservation system by bringing together specialists from the three concerned countries, i.e. Libya, Egypt and Sudan. The workshop will include the analysis of the legal and administrative framework and the definition of the long-term objectives of a management and conservation plan, which could lead to a future joint transboundary nomination of the site of Jebel Owenat to the World Heritage List. There are no sites of this kind in the Arab Region.