Webber Ndoro, Director of the African World Heritage Fund (AWHF) and Associate Research Fellow at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, will receive the ICCROM Award for his outstanding contribution to the field of cultural heritage conservation and to the development of the institution.
The Award Ceremony will take place on 18 November 2015 in Rome, during ICCROM’s 29th General Assembly.
A renowned lecturer of archaeological and architectural conservation and former site manager of the Great Zimbabwe World Heritage property, Ndoro has been instrumental in helping countries on the African continent prepare nominations to the World Heritage List and creating a more balanced representation of World Heritage properties. As Director of the African World Heritage Fund he has raised a significant endowment while at the same time ensuring the implementation of quality programmes and activities in favour of heritage conservation in sub-Saharan Africa.
Webber Ndoro’s involvement with ICCROM began in 1998, when he developed a management plan for the Khami World Heritage property in Zimbabwe within the framework of the AFRICA 2009 programme. He quickly became indispensible, lecturing on a number of courses and working closely with AFRICA 2009 staff until he left the University of Zimbabwe to come to work for ICCROM full-time in 2002.
Through his leadership and vision, AFRICA 2009 brought innovation by incorporating new thinking to cultural heritage conservation: its role in sustainable development, living heritage approaches, and his advocacy work to create a better understanding of African heritage and perspectives.
While at ICCROM, Ndoro also edited two of the books within the ICCROM Conservation Studies publication series, Legal Frameworks for the Protection of Immovable Cultural Heritage in Africa, and Cultural Heritage and the Law: Protecting Immovable Heritage in English-Speaking Countries of sub-Saharan Africa. He also authored another title in that series, The Preservation of Great Zimbabwe: Your Monument Our Shrine (based on his PhD thesis work)..