UNESCO attaches great importance to the protection of underwater cultural heritage. UNESCO's Member States adopted the Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage in 2001. UNESCO and the Republic of Kenya organized an African Regional Meeting on the Convention in Malindi, Kenya, in 2015 following a previous meeting in Nigeria in 2013. During the Malindi meeting, representatives of African governments called on those governments which are not yet party to the UNESCO 2001 Convention to ratify it within the next two years. They also encouraged those countries that have ratified the Convention to implement follow-up actions, such as the elaboration of inventories of sites and data assembly relating to underwater cultural heritage.

An Africa Regional Committee to foster the ratification and implementation of the UNESCO 2001 Convention, as well as to promote regional cooperation, was also created. The two-day UNESCO Africa Regional Meeting in Maputo takes stock of the progress made in safeguarding the underwater cultural heritage of Africa, while contributing to a discussion on how to ratify and implement the 2001 Convention drawing from national experiences.

Country representatives from Angola, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Soudan, South Africa Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the host country of Mozambique presented a short report on the progress made in the legal and practical protection of underwater cultural heritage, as well as provided a status update on underwater archaeology in their country, which will be later on published on UNESCO's website.

This meeting was preceded by a national community workshop in the llha de Mogambique on 8 December 2016.