Rachid Karami International Fair-Tripoli

Factors identified at the time of inscription of the property:

• Local conditions affecting physical fabric (state of critical conservation conditions and need for emergency stabilisation measures)
• Management and institutional factors (lack of management structure, lack of defined buffer zone, lack of financial resources)
• Buildings and Development (Vulnerability to potential inappropriate developments)

• state of critical conservation conditions and need for emergency stabilisation measures
• vulnerability to potential inappropriate developments
• lack of management structure

Total amount: USD 34,940 from the World Heritage Fund budget line dedicated to properties inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger; USD 224,514 from the Getty Foundation for the development of a Conservation Management Plan.

The State Party did not submit the state of conservation report, which was requested by the World Heritage Committee at its 18th extraordinary session (UNESCO, 2023).

On 17 April 2024, the World Heritage Centre organized a meeting with the State Party, ICOMOS and UNESCO Regional Office in Beirut to discuss the previously invited joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring mission to the property, planned from 3 to 7 June 2024, as well as the process for defining a Desired state of conservation for the removal of the property from the List of World Heritage in Danger (DSOCR). The meeting gave the State Party the opportunity to present overviews of the current state of conservation, as follows:

• The political and economic situation in the country remains a huge challenge;
• The inscription of the property attracted potential investors and partnerships. At this stage, the Board of Directors of the Rachid Karami International Fair did not approve any proposal;
• The restoration of the Guest House and its conversion into a temporary workshop within the initiative ‘Al Minjara’ financed by the European Union to preserve and revive Tripoli’s woodcraft heritage, has received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2022. It provides a model of adaptive reuse for other restoration works at the property;
• The project funded by the Getty Foundation (2018-2024) to draft a Conservation Management Plan (CMP) for the property, developed through the technical assistance provided by the UNESCO Regional Office in Beirut in consultation with the State Party, has been completed. The project aims to clarify the diverse values of the property; address technical issues, impacts, vulnerabilities, opportunities, and constraints; develop guiding policies for preserving the property’s significance; and identify possible adaptive reuse strategies towards a compatible development of the property (see https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/developing-conservation-management-plan-tripoli-fair);
• A capacity building workshop on Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA) is planned in November 2024, funded by the World Heritage Fund budget line dedicated to properties inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. It will be organized by UNESCO in collaboration with ICOMOS and ICCROM.

It is unfortunate that the State Party did not provide an updated state of conservation report as requested by the Committee. However, based on the available information, the state of conservation of the property is not expected to have changed since its inscription on the World Heritage List. The invitation extended by the State Party for the Reactive Monitoring mission to visit the property is welcome. The State Party has also actively engaged with the UNESCO Regional Office in Beirut and the World Heritage Centre to identify funding sources for the implementation of capacity building workshop on impact assessments in a World Heritage context, planned for November 2024. The workshop will be organized in collaboration with ICOMOS and ICCROM. Incorporating HIA mechanisms into the planning process remains essential to guarantee that planning provisions are consistent with the protection of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property.

The meeting of April 2024 served to initiate proceedings to define the DSOCR and corrective measures, and to delineate the buffer zone, as per the Committee’s requests (Decision 18 EXT.COM 5.1). These processes should proceed as a matter of priority. Other requests recorded by the Committee at the time of inscription, including providing exact geographical coordinates of the boundaries of the property, and developing detailed land-use and zoning guidelines for the planning of portions of the property as well its immediate setting, have not been addressed. The CMP, which has been submitted, will contribute to addressing other requests, including setting up a management structure for the property, carrying out a geometric and architectural survey and a detailed condition assessment of the built structures, and archival research. It will also contribute to providing a mechanism for the notification of the World Heritage Centre of projects that may affect the property’s OUV, in line with Paragraph 172 of Operational Guidelines. An HIA for any project proposals that may have an impact on the OUV of the property, such as the “Knowledge and Innovation Centre” (KIC) project, the revision of the master plans of El-Mina and Tripoli, or for the use of the dome, developed in accordance with the Guidance and Toolkit for Impact Assessments in a World Heritage Context, should also be submitted for review.

The challenges in maintaining the OUV of the property, which were identified at the time of inscription and for which it was inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger (the state of critical conservation conditions and the need for emergency stabilization measures, its vulnerability to potentially inappropriate developments and lack of management structure) remain. The poor and fragile state of the built fabric calls for urgent action and well-considered intervention.

Based on the above, it is recommended that the Committee retain the property on the List of World Heritage in Danger.