
EOH II Workshop – Implementation of the Enhancing Our Heritage (EoH) toolkit: Management Effectiveness Assessment
On 29 April 2018, ARC-WH launched a training programme on the Management Effectiveness of World Heritage Sites. As part of this programme, a second workshop was held in Petra and Wadi Rum, Jordan on management effectiveness from 1 to 7 September. The programme aimed at assisting site managers in the Arab region by enhancing their site management effectiveness skills and knowledge. A total of 11 participants from ten Arab States attended the workshop and tested their overall capacities related to management needs and processes.
The EoH toolkit was initially designed to support the management and assessment of natural sites. However, due to the growing need to enhance both cultural and natural interlinkages, especially from the perspective of management of World Heritage sites, a more holistic approach was implemented. This pioneering training programme created a more effective toolkit in the field of conservation and management today and was the first initiative of its kind to test the updated toolkit.
During the workshop, a site visit was organised to Petra where participants used a ‘hands-on approach’ and studied aspects of delimitation and design issues of the iconic site, as well as monitoring concerns and access control.
A group discussion was also held about the Tabe’a Report III, which will focus on Culture-Nature Interlinkages and the Impact of Conflict in the Arab Region. The aim of the discussion was to offer site managers the opportunity to contribute to the latest Tabe’a Report by sharing their own experiences in management and conservation. They were asked to draft articles about World Heritage sites they managed to offer credible first-hand accounts on the current state of heritage sites in the Arab region.
A third and final workshop is scheduled to be held early next year in 2019 where the remaining tools from the EoH toolkit will be addressed.