This World Cities Day is the seventh global celebration since the day was launched in 2014 in Shanghai, China. The 2020 World Cities Day themed ‘Valuing our communities and cities’ underlines the importance of the local communities who are at the heart of building sustainable cities. By 2050, nearly 7 out of 10 people in the world will live in cities. Cities have become the point of ...

The UIA (International Union of Architects) marked the World Architecture Day on Monday 5 October by holding a live webinar to discuss this year’s theme: “Toward a better urban future”. Moderated by UIA President Thomas Vonier and UIA Secretary General Serban Tiganas, the webinar began with a virtual roundtable which included the UN Habitat Assistant Secretary General and Executive Director ...

Site managers report on Covid-19 World Heritage sites are also affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the managers of World Heritage sites tell us how they are coping with the crisis. The UNESCO World Heritage Centre would like to warmly thank the site managers and staff who made the effort to update us during this particularly difficult time.This page will continue to be ...

Monitoring World Heritage site closures Introduction to the global map on the closure of World Heritage sites due to Covid-19 and analysis. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, many governments have taken measures to restrict movements of people and access to certain areas. This includes the closure of natural and cultural World Heritage sites in the 167 countries they are located in. ...

As part of the celebration of UN World Habitat Day, a high-level conference under the theme “Housing For All: A better Urban Future” was held online on 5 October 2020, at the initiative of the Ministry of National Territory Development, Urban Planning, Habitat and Urban Policy of Morocco. The event brought together several ministers and senior officials in charge of Housing, as well as ...

From 7 to 30 October 2020, the photo exhibition “Protecting UNESCO Marine World Heritage through scientific research" features 21 photographs at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, as well as a digital edition. Exceptional photographs highlight how innovative marine experts and scientists take the pulse of the ocean by exploring ecosystems, studying the movement of species, or revealing the hidden ...

Following requests from the United Republic of Tanzania, the World Heritage Fund has granted a total of USD 59,836 in International Financial Assistance for two new projects to address conservation and management needs at two World Heritage sites: the Ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani and Ruins of Songo Mnara and Kondoa Rock-Art Sites. A project signing ceremony convened by the Tanzania National ...

The Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Mechtild Rössler, expressed concern after the fire that, on the afternoon of 11 October, broke out in Kilimanjaro National Park (United Republic of Tanzania), a property inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1987. "We are in contact with the Tanzania National Park Authority (TANAPA) which is currently carrying out an initial assessment of ...

With support from the German Commission for UNESCO’s #SOSAfricanHeritage Fund, seven World Heritage sites from five Eastern African countries have received grants to help overcome impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on management and conservation. The recipients include: Simien National Park in Ethiopia; Sacred Mijikenda Kaya Forests and Mount Kenya National Park/Natural Forest in Kenya; Tsingy ...

Altering the route of the Transgabonese highway near the Ecosystem and Relict Cultural Landscape of Lopé-Okanda will better protect the World Heritage site. The Transgabonese highway project, which is to cross five provinces of Gabon to link Libreville (West) and Franceville (East) by expressway, foresees the rehabilitation and upgrading of various roads. The World Heritage Committee had ...

On the 1st of October, the second online World Heritage Nomination workshop, for Anglophone and Francophone countries, was officially closed by the Director of the World Heritage Centre. The training examined the challenges and strengths of nomination dossiers for 12 countries from the African Region, namely Benin, Cameroon, Côte-d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mali, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia ...

Migratory birds are part of our shared natural World Heritage. They depend on critical breeding, staging and wintering sites along major flyways which often span several continents. Two of the world’s largest migratory bird stop-over areas, Wadden Sea and Banc d’Arguin National Park were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2009 and 1989 respectively. This World Migratory Bird Day, we ...

The UNESCO World Heritage Centre has received numerous emails with third-party information regarding the construction of a concrete road passing through the World Heritage property “Sinharaja Forest Reserve” (Sri Lanka), which could negatively affect the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of this property. The road development was reportedly under temporary suspension, but work appears to have ...

As part of an ongoing UNESCO World Heritage Fund International Assistance project  “Capacity building and implementation of the World Heritage Convention in South Sudan”, UNESCO Juba Office in close collaboration with the South Sudan Ministry of Culture, Museums and National Heritage organized a three-day training workshop aimed at strengthening capacities of World Heritage stakeholders under ...

International experts from the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) led an online meeting on the theme "Safeguarding the cultural heritage of Comoros" for government stakeholders in Comoros on 29 September 2020. The meeting was organized in close collaboration with the Direction General for Arts and Culture of Comoros and reinforced existing UNESCO projects ...

Global strategy needed in ‘watershed’ moment to steer away from unsustainable tourism, stress experts at UNESCO debate. The online debate ‘Culture, Tourism and COVID-19: Recovery, Resiliency and Rejuvenation’ took place on 28 September and highlighted the devastating impact of COVID-19 on the tourism industry and the crippling effect it is having on many World Heritage sites, intangible ...

The Director of the World Heritage Centre, Dr Mechtild Rössler, launches the Third Cycle of Periodic Reporting in the region of Asia and the Pacific via a video message addressed to the National Focal Points One of the two main monitoring mechanisms within the framework of the 1972 World Heritage Convention, alongside Reactive Monitoring, the Periodic Reporting exercise is a statutory ...