Story | 07 5月, 2018

Africa is focus of new World Heritage Leadership course

Enrolment is now open for a World Heritage Leadership course on “People, Nature, Culture” tailored for the African region. The capacity-building programme is delivered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) – two advisory bodies on World Heritage.

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Photo: IUCN/Sue Mainka

The course, titled Promoting People-Centred Approaches to Conservation of Nature and Culture, will take place from 14 to 24 August in Mosi-oa-Tunya/Victoria Falls, a natural World Heritage site shared by Zambia and Zimbabwe and one of the most spectacular waterfalls on Earth. Applications through ICCROM are open until 18 May, and only participants from Africa are eligible to apply.

Delivered in English, the course is intended for cultural or natural heritage practitioners, people involved in heritage conservation and management, and those working with community groups who use heritage to bring benefits to society or heritage. Up to 20 people can take part.

It aims to help participants gain knowledge, skills and awareness on working with diverse people and values in the management of heritage places, including World Heritage sites. Framed as a forum for participants to share their experiences, it also promotes peer networks for life-long learning in the heritage sector.

The People, Nature, Culture course is part of the capacity-building programme World Heritage Leadership, which is jointly implemented by IUCN and ICCROM, with support from Norway, and in collaboration with the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre. Other participating organisations for the course in Zambia include the African World Heritage Fund and the National Heritage Conservation Commission of Zambia.

World Heritage Leadership initiatives aim to consolidate people-centred approaches and nature-culture linkages throughout World Heritage processes, as World Heritage can be a catalyst for improvements to institutional and legal frameworks in many countries, with positive repercussions for heritage in general. It focuses on promoting links between people-nature-culture in the management of heritage places and on securing a more dynamic role for heritage in wider sustainable development.

For more information on the course and on application process, please visit ICCROM’s dedicated webpage.