After a rigorous selection process, a total of 18 managers from five World Heritage sites in Africa were recently selected for admission into the World Heritage Centre / Earthwatch / Shell 2011 "Business Planning for natural World Heritage site managers" programme. First offered in South East Asia in 2009 and 2010, this year's programme will focus on Africa. The programme combines a 10-day intensive training session, followed by a one-year implementation phase, where lessons learned are applied with the support of expert mentors from Shell.
The successful candidates come from Lake Malawi National Park (Malawi), Lake Turkana National Park (Kenya), Rainforests of Atsinanana (Madagascar), Simien National Park (Ethiopia) and W National Park (Niger).
The five-year programme, funded by Shell and implemented by Earthwatch , an internationally recognized conservation and training organization, is based on the successful Business Planning for Natural World Heritage Site Managers pilot project previously carried out between Shell Foundation and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
