Academics mobilized for the safeguarding of African World Heritage

In line with UNESCO’s mandate to promote culture and education in Africa, the World Heritage Centre is pleased to announce that the workshop entitled “World Heritage and Education Institutions in Africa” will take place in Masvingo (Zimbabwe) from 26 to 28 April 2018.  Organized in cooperation with the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF) and the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa in Harare, this event marks an important milestone in the involvement of African educational institutions in the implementation of the World Heritage Convention.

This workshop is UNESCO’s direct response to the urgent need to build African capacities in a sustainable way and to spearhead international efforts to draw on the vast potential of safeguarding the continent’s cultural and natural heritage to foster sustainable development, as advocated in the Ngorongoro Declaration (2016).  Despite efforts to introduce heritage sciences in Africa’s academic institutions in recent years, the number of African heritage experts needed to safeguard the continent’s immensely diverse natural and cultural wonders remains insufficient.

The three-day workshop will provide a platform for English-speaking academics from over 20 key African educational institutions, site managers and African World Heritage experts to exchange on matters related to capacity-building in heritage conservation and management in Africa.

The participants will share experiences through paper presentations and thematic discussion sessions. The workshop will culminate in a series of recommendations on heritage curricula and enhanced involvement of educational institutions in World Heritage processes in Africa.

This workshop is made possible thanks to the generous financial support of the UNESCO/Netherlands Funds-in-Trust (NFiT).