Features of the UNESCO Cultural Heritage Programs
| |||
Definition | - Cultural heritage: monuments, group of buildings and sites - Natural heritage: natural features, geological and physiographical formations, and natural sites | - Intangible cultural heritage: practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills (as well as the instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated therewith) | - Documentary heritage: moveable, made up of signs/codes, sounds/images, preservable, reproducible and migratable, and the product of a deliberate documenting process |
Convention | Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (adopted in 1972) | Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (adopted in 2003) | In progress |
Categories | - Natural properties - Cultural properties - Mixed properties - WH in danger | Representative of ICH - ICH In need of Urgent Safeguarding - Programmes, projects and activities for safeguarding of ICH | - MOW international register |
Guidelines | Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention (updated in 2008) | ||
Criteria | Universal Value | Communities and groups - their interaction with nature and their history | World significant |
Missions/Objectives | - Encourage countries to sign the Convention - Encourage States Parties to the Convention to nominate sites - Encourage States Parties to establish management plan and set up reporting systems - Assist States Parties in safeguarding World Heritage sites by providing technical assistance and professional training - Provide emergency assistance - Support States Parties’ public awareness-building activities - Encourage participation of the local population - Encourage international cooperation | - Safeguard the intangible cultural heritage - Ensure respect for the intangible cultural heritage of the communities, groups and individuals concerned - Raise awareness at the local, national and international levels of the importance of the intangible cultural heritage, and of ensuring mutual appreciation thereof - Provide for international cooperation and assistance | - Facilitate preservation, by the most appropriate techniques, of the world’s documentary heritage - Assist universal access to documentary heritage - Increase awareness worldwide of the existence and significance of documentary heritage |
Structure of the program | - Committee - GA - Advisory bodies: IUCN, ICOMOS and ICCROM - World Heritage Center (established in 1992) | - Committee - GA - Subsidiary bodies - Secretariat (assisted by the UNESCO Secretariat) | - International Advisory Committee (IAC) - Regional Committees: Asia Pacific MOWCAP, Latin America-Caribbean MOWLAC, Africa ARCMOW - National Committee - Secretariat (provided by the Information Society Division of UNESCO) |
History/Background | - 1959 - 1971: Towards a Convention - 1972 - 1991: Convention - 1992 - 2001: 20th Anniversary (World Heritage Center / Global Strategy / Young People’s Participation) - 2002 - 30th Anniversary (International Congress World Heritage / Budapest Declaration on World Heritage) | - 1946 - 1981: First step - 1982 - 2000: from Mondiacult (Mexico) to Our Creative Diversity - 2000 - Onwards and the drafting of the Convention | - 1992: UNESCO established the program - 1993: 1st meeting of the International Advisory Committee - 1995: Memory of the World register |
Funding | - World Heritage Fund (established in 1972) - Other voluntary contributions - Funds-in trust - Incomes (from sales of publications) - Private donation - Int’l fund-raising campaign | - Fund for Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (established in 2003) - Other voluntary contributions - Funds-in trust - Partnership with corporations - Int’l fund-raising campaign | - Memory of the World Fund (in progress) - Extra-budgetary incomes (from product sales, royalties) - Donations (from governments, donors, and sponsors) |