Delegates from Bhutan, China, India and Nepal meet with UNESCO experts in Kathmandu to prepare the first South Asian Silk Roads Transnational World Heritage Nomination

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Paris and the UNESCO Office in Kathmandu in close collaboration with the Department of Archaeology, Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation of Nepal is organizing a two-day workshop financed under the Korean project “Support for the preparation for the World Heritage Serial Nomination of the Silk Roads in South Asia”, on 23 and 24 September 2014 in Kathmandu, Nepal.

The workshop will be attended by representatives and experts from four South Asian countries, Bhutan, China, India and Nepal, international experts, UNESCO representatives and about 60 participants from Nepal, to discuss a potential Serial and Transnational World Heritage Nomination of the South Asian Silk Roads heritage routes.

This workshop will also have the opportunity to share the experience of the first inscribed Silk Roads World Heritage : Initial Section of the Silk Roads, the Routes network of Tian-shan Corridor, jointly prepared by China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan and inscribed in June 2014.

Within the framework of the Global Strategy for a Representative and Balanced World Heritage List adopted by the World Heritage Committee, China and the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have already been working with UNESCO on this issue since 2006, supported by several regional workshops and three meetings of the intergovernmental Coordinating Committee of the Serial World Heritage Nomination of the Silk Roads, attended by representatives from China, the five Central Asian countries, as well as Afghanistan, India, Iran, Nepal, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

The present Kathmandu workshop aims at reviewing the  state of research on the potential heritage routes of the participating countries and deciding on a joint nomination strategy of the South Asian Silk Roads.  The workshop will also decide on inviting representatives from Bangladesh and Pakistan, to join the preparation process of a joint South Asian Silk Roads World Heritage Nomination.

This workshop will provide an opportunity for a sub-regional collaboration to better represent the region’s historical and cultural significance through a potential inscription of a South Asian Silk Roads “heritage corridor” on the World Heritage List.