CARICOM, SIDS, UNESCO World Heritage Meeting

From 4 to 6 April 2011, over 30 participants from 8 Caribbean States (Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica), as well as representatives from the Pacific (Fiji) and the Indian Ocean (Mauritius), CARICOM, ICOMOS and the University of the West-Indies attended the Meeting on World Heritage and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in Barbados, organised by the Government of Barbados and UNESCO's World Heritage Centre (WHC), in cooperation with UNESCO's Offices in Kingston and Havana, and with financial support of the World Heritage Fund, the Netherlands Funds-in-Trust and the Government of Andorra within the framework of the World Heritage SIDS Programme.

The meeting aimed to discuss progress in the implementation of the 2005 Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Barbados Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of SIDS, in particular the areas in which the Caribbean Member States can make a contribution, and in what way they should do so. This meeting provided an opportunity to address several items of the EXB Decision 185/41 related to "UNESCO's contribution to the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS)", in particular under its paragraph 11; to identify opportunities for interdisciplinary activities; to strengthen integration of cultural and natural heritage into national and regional sustainable development frameworks; and to discuss the revision of the Caribbean Action Plan in World Heritage (2004), and to consider how this integration could be reflected in a renewed commitment.

The full report of the meeting is under preparation, while the outcome document is available at this webpage.