2013-11-27

„Managing Cultural World Heritage“ reference manual published

The manual provides guidance for States Parties and all those involved in the care of World Heritage cultural properties on how to comply with the requirements of the World Heritage Convention.

Since the World Heritage Convention was adopted in 1972, the World Heritage List has continually evolved and is growing steadily. With this growth, a critical need has emerged for guidance for States Parties on the implementation of the Convention. Various expert meetings and results of the periodic reporting process have identified the need for more focused training and capacity development in specific areas where States Parties and World Heritage site managers require greater support. The development of this series of World Heritage Resource Manuals is a response to this need.

The manual also aims to help States Parties to ensure that heritage has a dynamic role in society and harnesses, but also delivers to others, the mutual benefits that such a role can create. This manual is intended as a tool for capacity-building for the effective management of heritage, and for World Heritage properties in particular. It is designed to help all practitioners:

to strengthen the knowledge, abilities, skills and behaviour of people with direct responsibilities for heritage conservation and management;
to improve institutional structures and processes through empowering decision-makers and policy-makers;
and to introduce a dynamic relationship between heritage and its context that will lead to greater reciprocal benefits through an inclusive approach, such that outputs and outcomes follow on a sustainable basis.

The main text of the Resource Manual explains what is involved in management for World Heritage, its context, its philosophies and its mechanisms. A set of appendices then offers guidance on how to put them into practice.The titles in this series are produced as PDF online documents which can be downloaded free of charge: whc.unesco.org/en/activities/827/ The publication of the series is a joint undertaking by the three Advisory Bodies of the World Heritage Convention (ICCROM, ICOMOS and IUCN) and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre as the Secretariat of the Convention.

World Heritage Centre
UNESCO
7, Place de Fontenoy 75352 Paris 07 SP
France E-mail: wh-info@unesco.org