From 2 to 7 October 2023, the ICCROM-IUCN World Heritage Leadership (WHL) programme, together with George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI) and in collaboration with the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) of Korea and the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage (KNUCH), organized the first training of trainers workshop on World Heritage management.
The first training of trainers workshop, “Managing World Heritage: People Nature Culture” (PNC), took place in George Town, Penang, Malaysia. The workshop brought together 23 heritage professionals - from Algeria, Chile, China, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Kenya, Italy, Lebanon, Malaysia, North Macedonia, Norway, Palestine, Romania and Zimbabwe - who had previously collaborated with or participated in capacity-building activities organized by WHL or GTWHI.
The workshop outlined the content of the PNC course: the WHL programme’s flagship foundational course dedicated to site managers and practitioners working with World Heritage properties and other heritage places around the world. The workshop provided participants with the tools and knowledge to plan, organize and implement the PNC course in different formats, contexts and regions. In addition to the course content, all matters concerning cooperation with different actors, establishing and fostering collaborations with partners, and dealing with the logistical and technical implementation of capacity-building courses and workshops were covered during the discussions.
With the collaboration of GTWHI and local actors and stakeholders, participants had the chance to better understand the context of George Town World Heritage City and its heritage through visits to several local heritage places. They explored places in George Town and wider Penang, including the shrine of Makam Dato Koyah, the clan house and temple of Boon San Tong Khoo Kongsi, the Clan Jetties and the Biosphere Reserve of Penang Hill. The visits allowed the group to learn more about George Town’s history and heritage and offered the opportunity to reflect on how to utilize site visits in consolidating course learnings and enhancing capacity-building experiences.
As part of the course, participants were asked to put what they learned into practice, working in smaller groups to design a concept note for a capacity-building activity based on the PNC course content adapted to the Malaysian national context. Each group presented the result of their work to GTWHI and discussed with local actors about how these proposals could be improved and implemented on the ground.
Training of trainers activities play a pivotal role in the implementation of WHL and in achieving its strategic objectives. In its second phase (2023-2028), WHL is focusing on working with national, regional and international actors, institutions and networks to mainstream capacity building and disseminate the content of new and revised World Heritage resource manuals – Guidance and Toolkit for Impact Assessments in a World Heritage Context (July 2022); Managing World Heritage manual (coming soon); Enhancing Our Heritage Toolkit 2.0 (coming soon); and the revised manual on Managing Disaster Risk (foreseen for 2024). By teaming up with a diverse range of resource people and institutions, the programme will focus on strengthening the resource networks and multiplying capacity-building efforts in many languages and across diverse regions of the world.