- Start date: 18 October 2016
- End date: 27 October 2016
- Location: Vigan Cultural and Trade Center at Vigan City, the Philippines
- Number of Participants: 12
- Nationalities: 10
Executive Summary
The 2016 International Training on Heritage Impact Assessments (HIA) opened on 18 October at the Vigan Cultural and Trade Center in Vigan City, the Philippines. The workshop was the third session of the series and was organized by WHITRAP and ICCROM with support of the Vigan City Government.
At the opening ceremony, welcome addresses were given by Executive Deputy Director of WHITRAP Shanghai Ms. Lu Wei, the Vigan City Councillor and Acting Mayor Ms. Janina Carine Medina-Fariñas, and Ms. Katri Lisitzin, representing ICCROM.
A total of 12 trainees from ten countries across Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Arab world participated in the session, representing China, Egypt, Fiji, India, Mongolia, Montenegro, Myanmar, the Netherlands, the Philippines and Singapore.
The ten-day course aimed to equip participants with theoretical and applicable methods of heritage impact assessment through lectures, field tours, and case studies. At the end of the course, Vigan authorities were invited to listen to presentations made by trainees about their studies of local cases.
WHITRAP, together with ICCROM, initiated the training workshops to cope with the threats posed to World Heritage properties from various types of large-scale development activities, and the negative impacts to the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV), integrity and authenticity of the properties. Under the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding in regional capacity building, workshops have taken place every two years since 2012.