OWHvoices
The 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention is a great opportunity for the global community to celebrate the successes of heritage protection and give face a group that need better representation: communities and civil society at large. With OurWorldHeritage #2021debates to guide us, it is clear that we need broader recognition, engagement and collaboration to address the challenges of the next 50 years of World Heritage and beyond.
OWHvoices will focus on the actors, specifically civil society organizations, specialized institutions, local communities and governments, academic institutions, who among others, require deeper engagement with the complex tasks of conserving the planet’s outstanding cultural and natural heritage. OurWorldHeritage uses this stage to bring forward the conclusions of #2021 debate and makes a case for future civil society participation within the World Heritage system.
In 2021, the OurWorldHeritage Foundation organized #2021debate, a year long webinar series of 134 events and lively discussions on 12 heritage related themes (one per month). OWH #2021debate engaged thousands of people to highlight heritage issues, including success stories as well as failures, in order to identify new opportunities and future challenges, with a comunity centered approach. The outcome of these debate has also defined three vectors for future OurWorldHeritage action (CAP): Co-learning, civil society Advocay and advancing Practice.
OWHvoices is supported by the Romualdo del Bianco Foundation in Florence.
Program
MONDAY 14 NOVEMBER - OWHvoices GLOBINAR
TUESDAY 15 NOVEMBER - OWHvoices SYMPOSIUM
WEDNESDAY 16 NOVEMBER
Florence celebrates 40 years in the convention:
the role of local governance and civil society
This session is co-organised with the City of Florence, to celebrate and commemorate the 40 years listing of Florence as World Heritage. We are exploring ways to lifestream this event, and if this is not possible we will publish the recordings on this webpage after the event.
THURSDAY 17 NOVEMBER
Places and Cultures in Transition: Heritage Challenges for the Future
OurWorldHeritage and Romualdo Del Bianco foundation collaborate in a lecture series on “the future of…”, as part of the week long event “The World in Florence”, taking place in Florence. We are exploring ways to lifestream this event, and if this is not possible we will publish the recordings on this webpage after the event.
50 years of World Heritage Convention
The world has changed since the adoption of the WH Convention in 1972. New threats have emerged, ranging from climate change to conflicts, urbanisation, migration and tourism. Information technology has transformed the way people approach heritage, especially global youth. In addition, like all international treaties, the scope has broadened to include rights, justice, gender equality as well as contributions by local communities and Indigenous peoples.
The Convention has yet to embrace the complexity of the contemporary world. New actors, civil society organizations, specialized institutions, local communities and governments, academic institutions, among others, require deeper engagement with the complex tasks of conserving the planet’s outstanding cultural and natural heritage.
OurWorldHeritage and #2021debate
Launched on 16 November 2020, OurWorldHeritage convened a year of monthly explorations in 2021 on important heritage themes: heritage tourism, diversity, disasters, sites of memory, sustainability, and new heritage approaches. The OWH community learned together and shared issues, challenges, failures and successes. At the same time, we reflected on the challenges ahead, on the limits of the existing protection systems, and on the roles that different actors can play in supporting the conservation of World Heritage sites in the decades to come, with an emphasis on local communities.
Almost all 134 #2021debate webinars have been recorded and included in the HERITAGEarchive.
