8/7/2025–|Last update: 22:45 (Mecca time)
Is Africa become one of UNESCO’s favorite regions? During her states at the head of the organization, General Director Audrey Azoulay sought to give great importance to the continent, which acquires 9% of the sites listed on the World Heritage List, but she houses nearly a quarter of the sites exposed to danger.
Turquoise water form The Bigagos Archipelago in Guinea Bissau The mangrove trees and the exceptional vital ocean reserves, as well as the Gola Tiiae forests in Sierra Leone, are a haven for extinction species such as forest elephants, attractions that may qualify their countries to enter World Heritage List.
Among the other sites in sub -Saharan Al -Sahara, the Mandara Mountains in Cameroon and Jabal Mulangi in Malawi, which is studying the World Heritage Committee in UNESCO to include the list during its meeting in Paris It continues until Sunday.
Since she took office in 2018, “she did not make Audrey Azoulay Africa Its priority, but the continent has also become one of UNESCO’s international priorities. Very positive results from this trend began, “according to the head of the center UNESCO For World Heritage Lazar Elondo Assomo.
The Cameroonian, whose appointment to this strategic position is also symbolically, pointed out that “a very clear strategy was placed”, especially to include the eleven African countries that have not been included in any of its sites before the famous list.
As for the budget allocated to Africa, it increased to more than a quarter of the total budget of the United Nations Organization (27%) in 2025.
However, filling this gap will take time: while the number of sites listed in sub -Saharan Africa increased from 93 to 108 sites in recent years, the percentage is still low compared to the total number of sites around the world with more than 1,200.
However, the World Heritage Agreement started its story from Africa. In 1959, the Egyptian Pharaoh Temple Ramses II in Abu Simbel was threatened with drowning under the waters of the Nile, with a construction High dam In Aswan. Then I asked Egypt Walalumaner UNESCO help to protect this teacher.
The first recordings in 1978 included African sites such as Gori Island in Senegal, the slave trade code, and the Liebella churches sculpted in the rock nicknamed “Jerusalem Ethiopian.
“European vision”
However, several countries from the continent have not yet signed the 1972 agreement that set the conditions for the inclusion of sites on the World Heritage List. Nominations require time and resources, which led to Africa gradually declining compared to other regions.
“It was not a long time since many of these countries have become independent, and development was a priority compared to heritage protection,” says Lazar Elondo Asomo.
Initially, “this concept was closely related to a European and Western vision related to antiquities and facilities made of fixed old stones,” explained by the director of Senegalese national parks, Colonel Etihadima Gay, who supervised the inclusion of two of these parks in the World Heritage List, to Agence France -Presse.
In an attempt to restore balance to the situation, UNESCO has begun to be increasingly integrating the so -called living cultures that had previously been a very incomplete representative. Now, the sacred sites and dirt buildings find their place in the World Heritage List, given their spiritual, social or symbolic importance.
Specialized training programs for archaeologists, architects and heritage teachers began to appear.
Elondo Asumo warns that “increasing armed conflicts, climate warming, and exploiting mining and oil resources, are challenges that may endanger African sites.”
“The heritage must be seen as a way to contribute to development, which is what many countries aspire, of course,” he says.
The Bigagos Archipelago in Guinea -Bissau has been waiting for it to be included on the UNESCO list for a long time, after the failure of the first request in 2012. It has required intensive scientific research and careful study for the local population to re -introduce its coastal and marine environmental systems to UNESCO.
Its islands, which are of great importance for the multiplication of green turtles and a corridor for migratory birds, is home to sacred sites and includes basic resources for craftsmanship for their residents.
“Our rules are based on the rules of local communities that were protecting these sites,” Issa Reagalla de Barros, General Manager of the Institute of Biological Diversity and Protected Zones in Guinea Bissau told AFP.
“We support tourism, but not under any circumstance. There is no way to give a folkloric character to this culture,” he added.