Capacity-building – whether of practitioners, institutions or communities and networks – is seen as a form of people-centred change that entails working with groups of individuals to achieve improvements in approaches to managing heritage.

Capacity-building in the World Heritage framework can encompass the strengthening of knowledge, abilities, skills and behaviour of people with direct responsibilities for heritage conservation and management. It can improve institutional structures and processes through empowering decision-makers and policy-makers, and can introduce a more dynamic relationship between heritage and its context and, in turn, greater reciprocal benefits by using a more inclusive approach, and in a way that provides a sustainable approach to missions and goals.

The Capacity-Building theme includes policy related to Capacity-Building for the Convention, including the Capacity Building Strategy.