To manage a World Heritage Site, training and dialogue with representatives of other UNESCO designated sites and all levels of government – national, regional, and local – that help implement the World Heritage Convention, are essential. It is also for this reason that Associazione Beni Italiani Patrimonio Mondiale (Italian World Heritage Sites Association) organized several workshops during 2025, in which the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation played an active role.
THE ITALIAN HERITAGE SITE NETWORK
Associazione Beni Italiani Patrimonio Mondiale (Italian World Heritage Sites Association) was founded in 1997 and has since supported institutions and entities responsible for managing the 61 World Heritage Sites scattered around Italy, with the object of promoting cooperation and shared projects. Belonging to the same national territory – or to more limited areas – is often not enough for UNESCO designated sites and their managers to get to know each other, which is why training becomes an opportunity to create virtuous collaborations and shared guidelines. Five meetings were held in 2025, three online and two in person in Rome, at the premises of the Ministry of Culture (which funded the program under law 77/06) and Palazzo Senatorio on Piazza del Campidoglio square, attended by representatives and experts from national and international institutions. The topics of the program, called “Meetings and Territories – UNESCO designated sites side by side”, deal with the concept of “Being a UNESCO site”: from the protection of World Heritage Sites to the knowledge and management of designated sites, from governance networks to impact assessment tools.
THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE UNESCO DOLOMITES FOUNDATION
During the first meeting, held on 6 February in Rome, the Director of the UNESCO Dolomites Foundation, Mara Nemela, discussed the experience of the “Training Course for Local Administrators,” organized in recent years in Belluno, Primiero San Martino di Castrozza (TN), Andalo (TN), and due to take place next in November in Claut (PN). A good practice that in every edition has allowed not only to acquire a deeper knowledge of the World Heritage Site but also greater awareness among Local Administrators, with the opportunity for them to connect, to share and develop new visions and strategies for the future. The Foundation also gave its contribution to the March meeting on “Governance Networks: technical skills and relations between institutions for the management of a World Heritage Site,” and during the concluding event. The final day of discussion, 24 October, was opened by Alessio Pascucci, President of Associazione Beni Italiani Patrimonio Mondiale (Italian World Heritage Sites Association), and Enrico Vicenti, Secretary-General of Commissione Nazionale Italiana per l’UNESCO (Italian National Commission for UNESCO). It continued with a workshop on the effectiveness of World Heritage management systems, led by ICCROM with participation from: Director Nemela, as well as Leticia Leitao, cultural heritage expert; Carlo Ossola, member of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas; Nicole Franceschini, officer of the ICCROM World Heritage Leadership Program; and Valentina Ippolito, head of the Florence World Heritage Office of the Municipality of Florence.