Decision of the World Heritage Committee 41 COM 9B

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC/17/41.COM/9B,
2. Recalling Decisions 38 COM 9B and 39 COM 9B adopted respectively at its 38th (Doha, 2014) and 39th (Bonn, 2015) sessions,
3. Welcomes the report of the World Heritage Centre and Advisory Bodies on proposals to improve the preparation and evaluation of mixed World Heritage nominations;
4. Reiterates that due to the complexity of mixed site nominations and their evaluation, States Parties should ideally seek prior advice from IUCN and ICOMOS, if possible at least two years before a potential nomination is submitted, in compliance with Paragraph 122 of the Operational Guidelines;
5. Recognizes the progress made by the Advisory Bodies over the past two years and encourages them to continue their efforts towards setting up a harmonized evaluation process for mixed nominations to include as far as is feasible:
   1. establishing a common approach for desk reviews,
   2. undertaking a joint IUCN/ICOMOS panel to either address the whole evaluation or to complete the evaluations after the first IUCN and ICOMOS panels in December,
   3. producing a single jointly agreed decision for mixed site evaluations;
6. Requests the Advisory Bodies to report back on the progress with regard to the above-mentioned paragraph to the 43rd session of the World Heritage Committee in 2019;
7. Calls upon States Parties to consider providing support to this initiative that requires additional resources;
8. Invites States Parties hosting potential mixed properties to reinforce their culture/nature interfaces in view of consolidating and sustaining the values of the properies.