News

A new UNESCO project funded by the Government of The Netherlands is supporting Eritrea’s efforts to strengthen the conservation and management of Asmara: A Modernist African City World Heritage property using the UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape Approach. Eritrea’s capital city Asmara was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2017 as “an exceptional example of early modernist ...

From 17 to 29 November 2018, the Fourteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 14) was held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The meeting was an important milestone for the international community to see where we are in achieving global goals—such as the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2010-2020 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable ...

The World Heritage Centre reaffirmed its commitment to the protection of natural heritage at the 18th Meeting of the Parties of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) in Brussels, Belgium, which was held on 27 and 28 November 2018. Ms. Mechtild Rössler, Director of the World Heritage Centre, welcomed the progress made in its protection and highlighted the future challenges facing this ...

From 26 to 30 November 2018, a high-level delegation from Belize is visiting Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to exchange best practices on leveraging their reef’s iconic World Heritage status, to protect their fragile ecosystems from climate impacts and secure sustainable livelihoods, jobs and income for local communities. The visit follows a series of landmark conservation actions that led to ...

From 12-14 November 2018, World Heritage Focal Points of the Arab States region came together in Manama, Bahrain for a workshop on Periodic Reporting for the World Heritage Convention. The workshop was organised and hosted by the UNESCO Category 2 Centre ARC-WH in cooperation with the World Heritage Centre and was held within the framework of the Third Cycle of Periodic Reporting (PR), ...

The World Heritage Centre, in close collaboration with the UNESCO Multisectoral and Regional Office in Dakar and the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF), organized a workshop entitled "World Heritage and Institutions of Higher Learning in Africa" from 6 to 8 November 2018 at the University Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis (Senegal), with the support of the Senegalese Ministry of Culture and the ...

From 14 to 16 November 2018, World Heritage marine managers and marine litter experts from around the world met at the Island of Norderney in the Wadden Sea World Heritage site to discuss impacts of marine litter and plastics. During the 3-day workshop, best practices on marine litter monitoring, clean-up campaigns and awareness-raising were exchanged. Marine litter, including plastics, is ...

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre is pleased to announce the Call for Projects for the World Heritage Volunteers (WHV) Campaign 2019. This Call welcomes the participation of all interested organizations and institutions. “Empowering the Commitment to World Heritage” What is the WHV Initiative? The WHV Initiative was launched in 2008 to encourage young people to undertake concrete actions ...

The World Heritage Centre received today a visit from a delegation of representatives from the Arhuaco indigenous community of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, included on Colombia’s Tentative List since 2012 as a potential mixed World Heritage property. The representatives met with the Director and the team of the Latin American and Caribbean Unit of the World Heritage Centre to discuss ...

UNESCO launches the second phase of the World Heritage and Museums programme in cooperation with three prestigious World Heritage cities: George Town, Melaka (Malaysia) and Vigan (the Philippines) Thanks to the generous and renewed funding from the government of Japan through UNESCO, three historic towns will design and implement a variety of activities, which strengthen the ties between ...

“Nan Madol: Ceremonial Centre of Eastern Micronesia” is a jewel in the Pacific that has inspired many stories and myths. There are more than 100 islets at the site, constructed with walls of basalt and coral boulders, upon which were built structures with walls up to eight meters high of columnar basalt that glistens in the sun. These ruins represent the ceremonial center of the Saudeleur ...

Addis Ababa, 5 November 2018: The Director of UNESCO Liaison Office to AU and UN ECA, and Representative to Ethiopia, Ms Ana Elisa Santana Afonso met with a delegation of the Orthodox Tewahido Church of Lalibela, led by His Holiness Aba Tsige Selassie, Head Administrator of the Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela. Begun in the 12th century, this complex of 11 churches was among the first cultural ...

From 18 to 22 October 2018, the World Heritage Centre undertook a technical mission to the Barotse Cultural Landscape, a site on the Tentative List of Zambia. The mission met with the local communities to identify suitable development projects compatible with the safeguarding of the cultural landscape, and to seek the support of the traditional custodians to nominate the site on the World ...

On 5 November 2018, a team of experts from the World Heritage Centre and IUCN arrived in Montenegro for a joint Advisory mission to the World Heritage property “Durmitor National Park.” The State Party of Montenegro invited the mission with the objectives to review a potential boundary modification and to assess the overall state of conservation of the World Heritage site. The mission ...

The World Heritage Office of the Historic Heritage Protection Directorate of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of the Government of Spain is organizing the XII National Meeting of World Heritage Managers, hosted by the Luis Seoane Foundation from 6 to 8 of November 2018 in the city of Coruña. The meeting, celebrated annually since 2007, is a space for analysis, debate and ...

The national Technical Secretariats of the six countries belonging to the Qhapaq Ñan, Andean Road System continue their collaborative efforts in strengthening the conservation and management structure of this unique and complex World Heritage site, inscribed in 2014 as a serial cultural transboundary property crossing Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. In the months of ...

UNESCO gathered tourism and heritage experts at the Organization’s Headquarters on 29 October 2018 to examine the leading role that tourism and culture can play in fostering sustainable development in the EU and China. The EU-China High Level Conference on World Heritage and Sustainable Tourism was organized in the framework of the 2018 EU-China Tourism Year, an initiative led by the ...

UNESCO condemns the intentional destruction of the Ahmed Al-Faz Mosque and Mausoleum in Hodeida, located on the coast approximately 30km from the World Heritage property of the Historic Town of Zabid. The General Organization of Antiquities and Museums (GOAM) in Yemen confirmed, in a statement published on 23 October, that the building was destroyed by extremists on the previous day. The ...

For the first time, UNESCO World Heritage coral reef managers will partner with global climate resilience experts and local community stakeholders to build and embed comprehensive resilience strategies into their management of World Heritage sites. The project builds on the capacity of reef managers to work locally and enables a global network of flagship protected area managers to create ...

The project “Communities and reinforcement of the management of the Royal Palaces of Abomey World Heritage Site” financed by the Netherlands Funds-in-Trust was implemented from July 2017 to August 2018, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture of Benin, the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF) and the School of African Heritage (EPA). The project aimed to strengthen the state of ...