The Hungarian Delegation based on its Government's instruction wishes to invite the World Heritage Committee to held one of its regular sessions in Budapest at an appropriate time within the time spar available for Hungary to do so as a Member of the Committee.

In this regard, we wish to inform the Committee that the year 2000 is of special importance for Hungary since it concurs with the celebration of the Millennium of the Hungarian Statehood.

We do recognize the friendly competition of Member States to invite this prestigious international body. Nevertheless we feel that several even procedural solutions may be found in case of the World Heritage Committee wishes to do so.

Under any condition the Hungarian Delegation is of the firm conviction that such an honour would also be a great source of inspiration for the whole region of Central and Eastern Europe that is emerging after a particularly difficult period of transformation. A region that is, as all the other parts of the world, not only very proud of its cultural identity and heritage but constantly referring back and relying having on it as a constant source of inspiration and inexhaustible source for its future as part of its own region of Europe and part of the world as a whole.

 

Annex XI.2

 

REMARKS ON DOCUMENT

WHC-98/CONF.203/15

Networking

1. It is advised to develop a simple (without any additional budgetary consequences at this point) pilot system of Internet-based communication for and among representatives of the different official World Heritage bodies, i.e. members of the (i) World Heritage Committee; (ii) Bureau of the World Heritage Committee; (iii) Consultative Body, etc. As a first step one representative would be identified as a focal point for a particular Member State who would have appropriate clearance for accessing formal and informal documentation of the particular body he or she is a member.

   Geographical Information

2. It is requested to coordinate activities related to the production of digitized geographical information related to nominations and periodical report documentation. In this regard, a special attention should be paid to produce a geo-referenced, rather than scanned in as a non-raster ("bit map" type) data.

It is considered that a proper professional assessment of all available and potentially accessible geographical information in a proper format is ought to be made one of the basic reference tools for the future Integrated Information Management System.

It is also requested that such an expert assessment should produce a dynamic and flexible standard format for any future geographical data requested from the Member States during nomination and periodic reporting. The same should also apply to the documentation part forward by the Advisory Bodies for consideration by Member States.

Hungarian Delegation

December 4, 1998

 

Annex XI.3

Proposal for establishing a World Heritage Fellowship Program (WHIP)

It is proposed for the Committee to request the World Heritage Centre to prepare a formal report for the 23^rd regular session of the Bureau about the proposal outlined below with appropriate assessment of the potential financial, organizational and, in particular, substantial consequences regarding training, education and adjustment of the existing imbalances of the properties inscribed on the World Heritage List and the implementation of the Global Strategy for a representative and credible World Heritage List.

Objective

The main objective of creating a World Heritage Program is to establish a structured, transparent and dynamic framework for addressing the growing challenges concerning constant lack of trained and educated international, national and, last but not least, site managers in States Parties who are most need them. By providing a substantive educational and training tool, in close cooperation with the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies, a new generation of site managers, educators and scientists could be created on a continuous basis establishing a particularly rich tool of World Heritage Alumni, a new network of directly or indirectly interested and involved experts.

Direct cooperation among the new World Heritage Alumni, as well the activities of the participants of the World Heritage Fellowship Program should directly related to the most urgent needs and challenges as it was identified and as it may be adjusted during the development of the program and the related curriculum of the World Heritage Fellowship Program.

Implementation framework

Duration of the World Heritage Fellowship Program could be around 4-6 months depending of the available funds. Number of participants should remain below 50 persons every given year. Age of the participants, with the exception of the teachers, graduate and post-graduate professors is ought to be limited between 25-40 years to assure a maximum length of time they could serve their respective employers.

The Program's timeframe would be divided into three separate and distinct parts: (i) formal training and classroom teaching at the World Heritage Centre; (ii) on-site training based on the invitation and approved by the World Heritage Committee in a State Party's World Heritage site; (iii) regional visit of World Heritage sites on the tentative list, but not yet nominated formally and/or those sites that are to be undergoing a periodic reporting exercise in the following years, so as to make possible for the Program Participants to contribute individually or as a group to the preparatory work related to the periodic reporting.

A trial period of 3 years could be envisaged during which the financing of the Program would be coming from international financial institutions and/or interested States Parties. At the end of that period, a formal report of the World Heritage Centre with constitutions and in collaboration with the Advisory Bodies should be prepared and submitted to the World Heritage Committee. In case it is approved, the program formally would be established by the General Conference of the World Heritage Convention's States Parties.

Hungarian Delegation

December 4, 1998

Annex 12