World Heritage Watch: Strategic Goals, Achievements and Challenges after Four Years
World Heritage Watch: Strategic Goals, Achievements and Challenges after Four Years

Summary/Abstract: The World Heritage Committee routinely receives information about the state of conservation of WH properties from State Parties or ICOMOS or IUCN mission reports. While State Party Reports are often incomplete, out dated or even incorrect, Advisory Missions suffer from being too short and understaffed in order to fully grasp the local situation. The author will show that the observations of civil society must be brought in as checks and balances to let the WH Committee have a full understanding of the dynamics that affect World Heritage Properties. For many years, UNESCOhas been requiring the participation of local communities in all procedures of the World Heritage Convention - from tentative lists and nominationsto management and monitoring. However, State Parties remain reluctantto implement this - both on the site level and on the Convention level. Inresponse to this situation, World Heritage Watch has been founded as a globalnetwork of civil society actors whose goal is to contribute to the safeguardingof World Heritage Sites by bringing information to the attention of the WHCommittee, and to strengthen the role of civil society in the proceedingsof the World Heritage Convention. Based on practical experience from the field and four years of activity within the organization, the presentation will explain what civil society has achieved, suggest where the challenges are andhow they can be met, and provide an unvarnished outlook on the future of the World Heritage Convention.

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