Co-organized by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF), with support from the Permanent Delegations of South Africa and Azerbaijan to UNESCO, an event on Supporting World Heritage in Africa was held at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
Aiming to strengthen support for the World Heritage Convention in Africa, this event reinforces collective action to safeguard and promote Africa’s invaluable heritage for future generations.
Ambassador Elman Abdullayev, Azerbaijan’s Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, Ernesto Ottone, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture, Firmin Matoko, Assistant Director-General for Priority Africa and External Relations at UNESCO, as well as Albertus Aochamub, Member of the Board of the African World Heritage Fund and Permanent Representative of Namibia to UNESCO, addressed the event.
Ambassador Abdullayev said that despite its vastness and diversity, Africa's cultural heritage is disproportionately represented on the World Heritage List, with only 12.2% of the cultural properties included in the list being from Africa. “Moreover, 32% of the monuments on UNESCO's list of monuments in danger are located in Africa," he added.
He mentioned that these statistics underscore the need for urgent measures to protect and more widely represent African heritage, adding that in this regard, financial and technical support to partners operating in Africa should be increased.
The Azerbaijani diplomat emphasized that the Azerbaijan/UNESCO Trust Fund has provided appropriate support to the African World Heritage Fund, with financial support allocated again in 2025.
The event also featured presentations by a representative of the World Heritage Center and the head of the African World Heritage Fund, as well as a roundtable discussion on the theme "Supporting the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention in Africa," moderated by Albino Jopela, Executive Director of African World Heritage Fund (AWHF).
The AWHF was launched in May 2006 under South African Trust Law in order to provide finance and technical support for the effective conservation and protection of Africa’s natural and cultural heritage of outstanding universal value. The fund was established as a result of work undertaken by African member states of UNESCO with the objective of developing an ongoing strategy to deal with the challenges that most African countries have in implementing the World Heritage Convention.
The African World Heritage Fund (AWHF) strives towards the effective conservation and protection of Africa’s natural and cultural heritage. AWHF is for African Union (AU) member states that signed the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention in support of these goals. The AWHF is the first regional funding initiative within the framework of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention.
Shahla Aghalarova
Special correspondent
