As part of the Arab Group’s preparations to participate in the 45th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on September 10-25, 2030, the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization held, on September 3-4, 2023, the 16th session of the annual preparatory meeting of the Arab Expert Committee on Cultural and Natural Heritage.
The State of Kuwait has annually hosted the meeting of the Arab Expert Committee since its inception.
The meeting was held in cooperation with the Kuwait National Council for Arts and Letters (NCCAL), in the presence of the Acting Secretary-General of the NCCAL, Dr. Mohammad Al-Jassar, representatives from the Kuwait National Commission for Education, Culture and Science, and the ALECSO delegation, composed of Dr. Fethi Jarray, Heritage Expert, and Mr. Abdelhedi Ghemari, Project Coordinator at the Culture Department.
The meeting saw the participation of representatives of Arab States member of the World Heritage Committee, namely Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Egypt. It was also attended by Sheikh Ibrahim Al Khalifa, representing the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage (ARC-WH), based in Bahrain.
The meeting discussed the submission of the files of “‘Uruq Bani Ma’arid” in Saudi Arabia, “Tel Sultan” in Palestine, and “Djerba Island” for inscription on the World Heritage List during the upcoming Committee’s meeting. This was in addition to “The Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls” file, which is a permanent item on the agenda of the annual meeting of the Arab Expert Committee on Cultural and Natural Heritage.
Participants commended the efforts of Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Palestine to follow the UNESCO’s recommendations in the process of preparing their files, thereby providing best chances for them to be approved for inscription by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. They also appreciated the efforts of Jordan and Palestine to preserve the City of Jerusalem and its cultural heritage.
At the end of the meeting, it was agreed to pursue and support all these efforts, and to hold a meeting, in the nearest future, to be devoted to Arab heritage sites inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger, with the aim of developing a work program to have them removed from this List.
