UNESCO Urban Heritage for Resilience report

December 11, 2023 Published by Alex McCoskrie

The World Heritage Cities Programme team have released the UNESCO publication Urban Heritage for Resilience: Consolidated Results of the Implementation of the 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL Recommendation). 

Every four years, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre is required to carry out the statutory requirement of Member States consultation on the implementation of the UNESCO 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape and report to the Executive Board and General Conference. The Secretariat of the 2011 Recommendation conducted the survey from June to November 2022 at national (country) and local (cities and settlements) levels. UNESCO Member States were asked to provide national and local focal points and report on implementing the 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape for 2019-2022.   

The WH Cities Programme team received 187 reports from 69 countries. 125 reports were from cities and settlements. About 60% of these cities and settlements are on the World Heritage List.   

The framework and questions were developed based on the 11 international World Heritage City Labs, to which focal points, experts, UNESCO chairs, and the site managers contributed.    

This technical report gives overall results by region, focusing on the six thematic areas of the HUL, which serves as a framework for enhancing the resilience and management of historic cities and settlements. These areas align with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and they include governance mechanisms, mapping and inventorying of urban heritage, attributes and values, Inclusive and participatory approaches in decision-making, equitable economic benefits, Sustainable development and climate resilience, and the use of digital technologies for managing urban heritage including capacity-building.

Click here to read the report.