World Heritage City Webinar 17 June: Re-thinking Urban Heritage for Recovery and Resilience

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the fragility of our cities sharply into focus. In light of the new challenges that the crisis has presented to cities worldwide, UNESCO introduces its World Heritage City Webinar on ‘Re-thinking Urban Heritage for Resilience and Recovery.’

During the Webinar, to be held online on 17 June 2020 from 1pm to 3:30pm Paris time (UTC+2), an international panel of World Heritage City Mayors and experts will share their views and experiences.

Opened by Ernesto Ottone R., Assistant Director-General for Culture at UNESCO, the Webinar is an activity of the World Heritage Cities Programme, one of the six thematic programmes formally approved and monitored by the World Heritage Committee. In line with the implementation of the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, the World Heritage City Webinar aims to recover the notion of heritage cities as thriving urban centres using heritage-based strategies to build back cities to be stronger, more sustainable, more resilient, and more deeply connected to their history and landscape.

Today, World Heritage cities are faced with extended closures and the loss of livelihoods from tourism. Re-emergence from the crisis will need to carefully balance safeguarding continuity in heritage values and identity while, at the same time, considering alternative strategies and scenarios. A variety of models that are sustainable and people-centred need to be addressed to recover and build back historic cities.

In this context, the debate will explore how heritage can be integrated in and help support recovery, resilience, and sustainable development in World Heritage Cities.

Visit whc.unesco.org/en/cities/ For more information on the World Heritage Cities Programme.

Contact us at worldheritagecities@unesco.org

Thanks to the City of Nanjing for their support