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The Deputy Assistant Director General for Operations (Culture and Communication) responded on behalf of the Director General of UNESCO. Mr. Bolla expressed UNESCO's sincere appreciation for the invitation by the Government of the United States of America to hold the second session in Washington. In greeting members of the Committee and wishing them success in their work, he indicated the important role of international organizations such as UNDP, UNEP, IBRD, IDB, WFP, OAS and ALECSO in providing crucial support to conservation measures. In this context, he also expressed UNESCO's ...
The Chairman invited the members of the Committee to examine the provisional agenda prepared by the Secretariat. At the request of members of the Committee, two new items were added to the agenda: "Revision of the Rules of Procedure" and "Review of the Procedure for Nominations to the List of World Heritage in Danger."
With the above additions, the agenda was adopted.
The Committee discussed the need to increase the number of officers constituting the Bureau in view of the greater workload of the Bureau in the future. Committee members also felt that a larger number of officers would be advisable to allow for:
(i) better representation of geographical regions in the Bureau; and,(ii) enhanced expertise for both natural and cultural properties.
Having also in mind that the membership of the Committee itself would be increased from 15 to 21 delegates at the second General Assembly, the Committee agreed to elect henceforth 7 officers for the Bureau which ...
The Committee amended Articles 12.1 and 13 of the Rules of Procedure accordingly.
The Committee elected by acclamation Mr. David Hales (USA) as its Chairman. The Committee then proceeded to elect by acclamation the delegates of Ecuador, Egypt, France, Iran and Nigeria, as Vice-Chairmen, and Professor Krzysztof Pawlowski (Poland), as Rapporteur. The new Chairman then called for a standing ovation to thank Mr. Firouz Bagherzadeh for the excellent leadership he had provided to the Committee during the past year.
2 COM IV.14
Consideration of a draft text of a standard agreement between the World Heritage Committee and States receiving technical cooperation
The Committee, after reviewing and commenting on each article of the draft agreement, asked the Secretariat to take note of the observations made by the delegates and to elaborate a new, less detailed text for consideration by the Committee at its next session. It was also noted that the new text should be formulated in such a way as to accommodate the specific requirements and practice of States Parties. In doing so UNESCO's general principles for the provision of technical cooperation should be retained.
2 COM IV.15
Consideration of a draft text of a standard agreement between the World Heritage Committee and States receiving technical cooperation
Until the adoption of such an agreement by the Committee, UNESCO's rules and procedures would be followed in the provision of technical cooperation to States Parties.
2 COM IV.16
Consideration of a draft text of a standard agreement between the World Heritage Committee and States receiving technical cooperation
16. The Committee expressed the wish that the Secretariat, in the preparation of a new draft agreement, take note of the following observations and recommendations made by delegates during the discussion:
17. With regard to Article 2 paragraph 5: The delegate of Poland recommended rewording to avoid obligation to meet expenses (for instance, for medical treatment) in convertible currency for countries with a non-convertible currency. Several delegates considered that governments should be encouraged to employ the fellow to the extent possible upon his return, in the field for which he ...
2 COM IV.23
Consideration of a draft text of a standard agreement between the World Heritage Committee and States receiving technical cooperation
The Committee invited other members who wished to comment on the draft text to transmit their observations to the Secretariat by 31 December 1978. These comments would be circulated by the Secretariat to all members of the Committee and would be taken into account in the preparation of a revised text to be considered by the Committee at its third session.
2 COM V.24
Examination of the form and Periodicity of Publication of the World Heritage List, the List of World Heritage in danger and the List of Properties for which technical cooperation is granted
The Committee followed the recommendation of the Bureau and agreed to publish and disseminate annually the World Heritage List, the World Heritage in Danger List and the list of properties for which technical cooperation is granted from the World Heritage Fund as combined lists. (see document CC-78/CONF.010/6). It was pointed out that this arrangement would allow for timely updating of these lists after each annual session of the Committee.
2 COM V.25
Examination of the form and Periodicity of Publication of the World Heritage List, the List of World Heritage in danger and the List of Properties for which technical cooperation is granted
The representative of ICOMOS and the delegate of France drew the attention of the Committee to the introductory part to the World Heritage List in which some terms used in the French text did not correspond to the English text. In order to overcome this the Committee adopted the following changes in the French text: the criteria against which cultural properties would be evaluated, which are set out in point a) (ii) should read "... sur le développement de l'architecture, de la sculpture monumentale, de la conception des jardins et paysages, des arts connexes, des conceptions de ...
The former Rapporteur presented the views of the Bureau on this matter. He pointed out that the Bureau agreed that consideration should be given urgently to a general ongoing publicity campaign to promote the objectives of the Convention and the work of the Committee. Such a campaign would help to inform the public of the importance of conserving the World heritage, accelerate ratifications by Member States of the Convention, stimulate contributions to the World Heritage Fund, and generally start fulfilling the educational mandate outlined in the Convention.
After considerable discussion, the Committee agreed to form a sub-Committee for in-depth study of future public information and educational activities of the Committee.
The Chairman then nominated Mr. Peter Bennett as Chairman and appointed the delegates of Ecuador, France, Iran, Iraq, USA and representatives of the advisory organizations as members of the sub-Committee.
In reporting on the work of the sub-Committee, its Chairman outlined the objectives of the proposed public information programme, in the following terms. Firstly, the programme should focus upon the aims of the Convention, the work of the Committee, the criteria for the inclusion of sites in the World Heritage List and the types of assistance available to States under the Convention, providing examples of assistance already granted; the World Heritage List should be de-emphasized until such time as there were sufficient sites on the List to make it appear truly representative of the ...
After discussing the proposed programme, the Committee decided that the following three activities would be undertaken during the forth-coming year and authorized expenditure of up to $30,000 for that purpose :
(a) a brochure in five UNESCO languages (Arabic, English, French,Russian and Spanish) aimed primarily at opinion-makers in States not yet adhering to the Convention, to describe the objectives of the Convention, the criteria for nominations to the World Heritage List, the types of assistance available and the ways of applying for such assistance;(b) a simple, four-panel leaflet on ...
The decision to limit the number of activities to be undertaken during the next twelve months stemmed from the Committee's wish to pursue only those which would be of immediate interest in relation to the present stage of its work. The Secretariat was, however, requested to study the feasibility of carrying out at a later stage other activities proposed by the sub-Committee, such as the creation of a photo library of World Heritage sites, the preparation of a radio documentary and of a slide show with audio track, both in five languages and dealing with the objectives of the Convention, ...
The Committee recalled Article 20 of the Convention under which international assistance may not only be granted to property already included in the World Heritage List but also to property which had not yet been added to the World Heritage List. International assistance for property which had not yet been included in the World Heritage List, for which the working term "preparatory assistance" had been adopted by the Committee may be granted:
(i) for identifying cultural and natural properties of universal importance and preparatory work with a view to nominating properties for inclusion ...
After examining the budgetary situation of the World Heritage Fund (see document CC-78/CONF.010/INF.2) and discussing in depth appro- priate use of the Fund, the Committee decided to authorize the Chairman to grant, in consultation with the Director General of UNESCO, preparatory assistance to States Parties up to a total amount of US $140,000 (as shown in document CC-78/CONF.010/8) with a budgetary ceiling of US $15,000 per project. The Committee agreed with the proposal mentioned in paragraph 33 as put forward by the Secretariat and consequently decided that this preparatory assistance ...