World Heritage Centre

3 GA 1-6 Opening of the General Assembly by the Director-General

wh-support@unesco.org — Tue, 07 Oct 1980 00:00:00 EST

The Third General Assembly of States Parties to the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural^-Heritage met in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, on 7 October 1980 during the 21st session of the General Conference.
Forty-eight of the fifth-three States which were Parties to the Convention as at 7 October 1980 and which thus had the right to vote, were represented at the meeting, namely Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Federal Republic of Germany, Ghana, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Italy, Jordan, Mali, Monaco, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan,' Panama, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Socialist 'People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Republic of Tanzania, United States of America, Yugoslavia, Zaire.
Representatives of the following States not Parties to the Convention also participated, as observers, in the General Assembly Austria, Cuba, Finland, Japan, Madagascar, Malawi, Netherlands, Omani; Thailand, United Kingdom and Uruguay. Representatives of the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), one of the advisory organizations to the World Heritage Committee, of the Arab Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) and of the International Council qⁱf Museums. (ICON) also attended the meeting in an observer capacity.
The list of participants at the General Assembly is given in Annex I to this document.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly as adopted by the Second General Assembly of States Parties (Paris, 24 November 1978), the Secretariat of the Assembly was assumed the Secretariat of Unesco.
In opening the meeting, the Director-General stated that the Convention, to which 53 States were now Parties, had become fully operational since the first General Assembly held in 1976. So far 85 cultural and natural sites had been entered on the World Heritage List. In selecting these properties, the World Heritage Committee has been particularly concerned that only those which were unquestionably of outstanding universal value should be included in the List in order to assure its credibility. The Director-General drew attention to the need to maintain a balance in the application of the Convention between the cultural heritage and natural heritage fields and in particular to attain a better balance between specialists from the two disciplines among those participating in the work of the Committee. The value of the World Heritage List froth the educational and public information standpoints was underlined by the Director-General who described the different promotional activities already undertaken and those foreseen. He had no doubt that this effort would be actively pursued at the national level and he recalled his suggestion that a plaque be systematically placed at each site inscribed on the List. The Director-General informed the Assembly that technical cooperation activities amounting to $550,000 had already been financed in 18 countries including more than $ 200,000 for training and furthermore that the Committee had recently authorized the financing of other technical cooperation activities within a total budget of just over a million. The Director-General concluded by expressing the hone that many other States would soon join in the safeguarding system instituted by the Convention so that the international community as a whole may be associated in the most worthwhile task of protecting the world cultural and natural heritage.

3 GA 7 Election of the Chairperson, Vice-Chairpersons and Rapporteur of the General Assembly

wh-support@unesco.org — Tue, 07 Oct 1980 00:00:00 EST

7. The General Assembly elected by acclamation H..E. Mr. G. Abad Grijalva (Ecuador) as Chairman, the representatives of Monaco, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and Yugoslavia as Vice-Chairmen and M. Benyam Bekele (Ethiopia) as Rapporteur.

3 GA 8 Adoption of the Agenda of the General Assembly

wh-support@unesco.org — Tue, 07 Oct 1980 00:00:00 EST

8. The agenda of the Session was adopted without amendment. The work of the Assembly was completed in one meeting.

3 GA 9-12 Examination of the Statement of Accounts of the World Heritage Fund

wh-support@unesco.org — Tue, 07 Oct 1980 00:00:00 EST

9. The representative of the Bureau of the Comptroller introduced document CC-80/CONF. 018/2 by which, in accordance with the Financial Regulations for the World Heritage Fund, the accounts of the Fund were submitted to the General Assembly. He drew attention to the statement of accounts for the financial period which ended on 31 December 1978, given in Annex I to the document, and to the interim statement for the two-year financial period 1979-1980, drawn up as at 31 July 1980, set out in Annex II. The Assembly was then informed that contributions had been received from several States Parties since 31 July 1980 as follows :

Afghanistan	$ 100.00
Argentina	$ 11,511.50
Australia	$ 44,140.00	(The greater part of this sum had been received before 31 July 1980 but had been erroneously credited to a different fund)
Brazil	$ 5,000.00	(Voluntary contribution)
Canada	$ 43,705.00
Costa Rica	$ 433.00	for 1977-1978
	$ 287.00	against 1979-1980
Ghana	$ 278.00
Guyana	$ 290.00
Iraq	$ 2,323.00
Italy	$ 48,642.00
Jordan	$ 290.00
Nigeria	$ 3,775.00
Nepal	$ 145.00
Senegal	$ 290.00
Syrian Arab Republic	$ 290.00
United States of America	$ 300,000.00	(Voluntary contribution)
Yugoslavia	$ 5,726.50

10. The delegates of Chile and the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya requested that the contributions which they had paid in addition to their mandatory contributions should be included in the statement on voluntary contributions. The delegate of the Federal Republic of Germany informed the Assembly that the voluntary contribution of 110,788.00 paid by his Government was for the two-year period 1979-1980 and not for 1980 only. The Secretariat undertook to amend the financial statement for 1979-1980 to take account of the above-mentioned observations.

11. The General Assembly then took note of the accounts of the World Heritage Fund for the financial period which ended on 31 December 1978 and of the interim statement of accounts for the two-year financial period 1979-1980 as at 31 July 1980, on the understanding that the amendments referred to above would be made thereto. The Assembly also noted the information provided by the representative of the Bureau of the Comptroller on the contributions received since 31 July 1980.

12. The Deputy Assistant Director-General for Culture and Communication drew the attention of the meeting to the budget for the period September 1980-December 1981, which had been adapted by the World Heritage Committee at its recent session in the light of funds available; this budget amounted to $ 1,423,000. Of this sum $170,000 had been set aside for preparatory assistance projects, $445,000 for technical cooperation, $ 335,000 for training and $ 220,000 for emergency assistance.

3 GA 13 Determination of the amount of the contributions to the World Heritage Fund in accordance with the provisions of Article 16 of the World Heritage Convention

wh-support@unesco.org — Tue, 07 Oct 1980 00:00:00 EST

13. The General Assembly then unanimously decided, on the proposal of the Chairman, to maintain for the financial period 1981-1983 the amount of the contribution to be paid to the World Heritage Fund foreseen in Article 16, paragraph 1; of the Convention at 1 per cent of the contribution of States Parties to the Regular Budget of Unesco.

3 GA 14-17 Elections to the World Heritage Committee

wh-support@unesco.org — Tue, 07 Oct 1980 00:00:00 EST

14. The General Assembly was .called on to elect seven members to the World Heritage Committee to replace the following seven members whose term of office was due to expire at the end of the 21st session of the General Conference : Algeria, Ecuador, Ghana, Iran, Nigeria, Sudan and Yugoslavia.

15. The list of the States Parties which had presented their candidature was read out before the Assembly. In addition to Ecuador, which had announced earlier in the proceedings that it was no longer a candidate for election to the Committee, the following States then withdrew their candidature : Algeria, Costa Rica, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, Norway, Poland and the Syrian Arab Republic. Ten States remained candidates, namely : Afghanistan, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Federal Republic of Germany, Guinea, Guyana, Jordan, Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Zaire.

16. On the decision of the Chairman, the election was conducted by secret ballot. The delegates of Algeria and Norway were appointed tellers and the Vice-Chairman from Monaco supervised the counting of the votes.

17. The results of the vote which were announced by the Chairman were as follows :

Number of States Parties entitled to vote	53
Number of States Parties present and voting	47
Number of invalid ballot papers	3
Number of votes recorded	44
Number of votes constituting a majority	23

Votes obtained by the States candidates :

Brazil	40
Jordan	36
Zaire	33
Guinea	32
Cyprus	30
Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya	29
Federal Republic of Germany	27
Canada	25
Afghanistan	17
Guyana	9

The Chairman declared elected to the World Heritage Committee: Brazil, Cyprus, Federal Republic of Germany, Jordan, Guinea, Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Zaire.

3 GA 18 Other business

wh-support@unesco.org — Tue, 07 Oct 1980 00:00:00 EST

18. The Assistant Director-General for Culture and Communication offered his congratulations to those States which had been elected to the World Heritage Committee. He went on to refer to the essential role which the Convention and the Committee were playing in increasing^.the awareness of people of the importance of preserving cultural and natural monuments and sites which were of value to mankind as a whole. Another important result of the work undertaken under the Convention had been the fruitful collaboration which had developed between specialists in nature conservation and those in the preservation of the cultural heritage, both at the national level and within the Secretariat itself. Mr. Makagiansar paid tribute to several of the participants in the meeting who had actively contributed to the successful work undertaken by the Committee since the Convention entered its operational phase.

3 GA 19 Closure of the session

wh-support@unesco.org — Tue, 07 Oct 1980 00:00:00 EST

19. Before announcing the closure of the meeting, the Chairman stated that the implementation of the Convention was one of the examples of activities in which each and every country had a contribution to make. Each had its own heritage and the heritage of all nations together .formed-the patrimony of mankind. The Convention embodied the very ideals on which the Unesco Constitution was based. The Chairman then declared the meeting closed.