On the 18-19 April 2024, ICCROM headquarters hosted the Annual World Heritage Leadership Donor Group Meeting. The meeting was convened to deliberate on the progress, administration, and collaboration among key stakeholders, namely Norway, ICCROM, and IUCN, under the framework of the World Heritage Leadership (WHL) programme.
The Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment, Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage, Norwegian Environment Agency and IUCN were represented as the Programme partner institutions.
The meeting commenced with remarks from the Director-General of ICCROM and the Norwegian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN Organisations based in Rome, H. E. Morten von Hanno Aasland.
The Director-General of ICCROM highlighted the importance of the long-standing partnership between ICCROM, Norway and IUCN. “It enables us to carry out the very core of our mandate: capacity building. It also allows us to make an impact on a theme for which we feel a deep commitment: fostering the powerful links between people, nature and culture.” she mentioned.
The Norwegian Ambassador highlighted that Norway has been collaborating with ICCROM for many years, specifically with the International Training Course on Wood Conservation, which has built the foundation of this collaboration forged for the World Heritage Leadership programme. Capacity building is a commitment of the Norwegian government and particularly supporting countries where resources and capacities are needed to be reinforced and strengthened.
Central to the discussions of the Donor Meeting was the review of the WHL's work in 2023 and lessons learned. The meeting also discussed the plan of action for 2024 and the upcoming Work Programme II for 2025-2026 biennium that covers the four key modules of the programme: effective management, impact assessment, resilience and learning networks. A longer-term strategic, programmatic and sustainable way forward was also part of this effective brainstorming.
The Annual World Heritage Leadership Donor Group Meeting is the essential and strategic decision-making mechanism of WHL, and it serves as platform to strengthen our collaboration with Norway and IUCN on World Heritage capacity building.