The event is convened within the framework of ‘The Afghanistan Heritage & Extractive Industries Development Initiative’, a UNESCO programme financed by the World Bank through the Afghan Ministries of Mines & Petroleum and of Finance, aiming specifically at ensuring the protection of cultural heritage sites within mining areas in the country.


The Symposium will serve as a platform to share experiences from a number of countries and provide an opportunity to discuss challenges encountered, mitigation strategies adopted and results achieved. The initiative will gather representatives of governments, internationally renowned experts, research institutes and non-governmental institutions from both developed and post-conflict/developing countries, in order to facilitate a broad and inclusive discussion on how cultural heritage can be actually embodied in modernization processes to achieve the overall goal of sustainable development.