From 6 to 9 May 2024, the ICCROM-IUCN World Heritage Leadership (WHL) programme hosted at the ICCROM Headquarters in Rome the international training of trainers' workshop on Impact Assessment in a World Heritage Context.
This workshop brought together 17 natural and cultural heritage professionals from China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mauritius, Mexico, Norway, Panama, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, who had already participated in previous capacity-building activities organized by WHL.
The workshop aimed to enhance the skills of professionals in understanding impact assessment for World Heritage, designing and delivering different types of capacity-building activities on impact assessment, and contributing to the implementation of the World Heritage Convention at the local, national, and international levels. The workshop focused on understanding the impact assessment process and how this can be used to analyze and assess impact assessment needs, as well as the importance of considering diverse learning environments and cultural and social backgrounds to ensure the effective delivery of impactful activities.
Throughout the workshop, participants had the chance to use the historic centre of Rome as a shared case study to deepen their understanding of heritage management and impact assessment as a tool to empower good decision-making and effective heritage management. The course discusses the complexity of managing the World Heritage property of the Historic Centre of Rome, the Properties of the Holy See in that City Enjoying Extraterritorial Rights and San Paolo Fuori le Mura in the 21st century looking at existing tourism and development pressures and particularly analyzing projects like the construction of Metro C and other construction sites, as well as the preparation and urban renovations being implemented given the 2025 Jubilee of the Roman Catholic Church.
This workshop has been instrumental in strengthening the WHL's capacity to work in diverse regions and contexts and in multiple languages and in disseminating Impact Assessment Guidance and its methodology.
