Wazi Apoh

The need to integrate world heritage curriculum in the academic programmes of African educational institutions has become the clarion call of UNESCO and the African World Heritage Fund to African institutions. According to UNESCO, Africa boasts of a heritage of unrivaled natural and cultural diversity. Despite the adoption of the Global Strategy for a representative balanced and credible World Heritage List, the continent hosts only 9% of all World Heritage sites, while the European and North American Regions account for 47%. With 93 properties (51 cultural, 37 natural and 8 mixed sites), Africa is the most under-represented region on the List. Thus, the call for African educational institutions to implement the World Heritage Convention is an undeniable expectation that we have to champion as a credible regional body in Africa. The low inscription rate has been blamed on the poor quality of the nomination dossiers, which often results from the lack of close collaboration between governments and academic institutions. This is coupled with the fact that there is limited academic guidance and insufficient integration of world heritage studies into the programmes of academic institutions in Africa. This conference offers the platform for us to brainstorm and dialogue on how to facilitate our contributions to the existing curricula related to research, conservation and management of world heritage sites in West Africa.