Decision of the World Heritage Committee 43 COM 7.1

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Documents WHC/19/43.COM/7,
2. Recalling Decisions 40 COM 7, 41 COM 7, and 42 COM 7, adopted at its 40th (Istanbul/UNESCO, 2016), 41st (Krakow, 2017) and 42nd (Manama, 2018) sessions respectively,
3. Thanks the State Party of Azerbaijan, Host Country of the 43rd session of the World Heritage Committee (Baku, 2019), for having organized the third World Heritage Site Managers’ Forum, as a capacity-building exercise aimed at increasing the understanding of the World Heritage decision-making process among site managers, in order to achieve more effective protection of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV), takes note with appreciation of the 2019 World Heritage Site Managers’ Forum Statement and encourages the future Host Countries to continue this initiative in conjunction with the World Heritage Committee session;
   
   Evaluation of the Reactive Monitoring process
   
   
4. Taking note with appreciation of the evaluation of the Reactive Monitoring process launched by the World Heritage Centre, thanks the State Party of Switzerland for its financial support, as well as the experts tasked with this evaluation, for their thorough analysis of this process, instrumental in achieving the objectives of the World Heritage Convention;
5. Expresses its gratitude to all the stakeholders of the Convention who have actively contributed to this evaluation;
6. Notes that the recommendations formulated in the evaluation refer to improvements of the current practices and do not call for structural changes nor amendments to the statutory documents, and requests all stakeholders of the Convention to take them on-board and implement them at their level as soon as possible;
7. Agrees that the World Heritage Centre should prioritize implementation of the high priority recommendations, with an initial focus on those relevant to communication, capacity-building, including for site managers, and finance;
8. Also requests the World Heritage Centre to present a progress report on the implementation of the recommendations, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 44th session in 2020;
   
   Issues related to the List of World Heritage in Danger
   
   
9. Reaffirming the need to promote a better understanding of the implications and benefits of properties being inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger,
10. Thanks the State Party of Romania for its initiative to host a multi-stakeholder international workshop focusing on the List of World Heritage in Danger, including exchange of good practice, promotion of the properties inscribed on this List and the conservation needs to improve their state of conservation, such as Costed Action Plans;
11. Requests the World Heritage Centre to present a report on this workshop and other initiatives related to the List of World Heritage in Danger at the 44th session in 2020;
    
    Selection of the World Heritage properties to be proposed for discussion
    
    
12. Reaffirming the importance of focusing the debates on those properties and global conservation issues of greatest concern during the World Heritage Committee sessions, and taking into account the results of the evaluation of the Reactive Monitoring process,
13. Supports the outcomes of the reflection conducted by the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies regarding the elaboration of the list of state of conservation reports to be proposed for discussion by the Committee, as well as the current practice allowing Committee members to add to this list the reports they wish to discuss, by providing a written request to the Chairperson of the Committee, through the World Heritage Centre, sufficiently in advance of the session, and indicating the reason why the reports are requested to be opened for discussion;
14. Recognizes that the selection of the state of conservation reports to be discussed by the Committee during its sessions should be based on clear and objective criteria, including the level of threat to the property, rather than being based on representativity.