Fondazione Scuola dei beni e delle attività culturali (the School of Cultural Heritage founded by the Ministry of Culture of Italy) and ICCROM are seeking 30 participants from African countries and Italy to join their new capacity-building initiative: World Heritage in Africa. Fostering practitioners for nomination processes and strategies (WHAPS) project.

WHAPS aims to support and strengthen World Heritage capacities in Africa, with a focus on the World Heritage nomination processes and strategies and effective management planning approaches and impact assessments.

The project will be held in three phases from March to November 2025

• In-person forum on World Heritage in Africa at the World Heritage property of Great Zimbabwe National Monument, Zimbabwe (3-7 March 2025) bringing together a wide range of regional and international World Heritage actors
• 6 months online mentoring programme featuring bi-weekly online sessions (2 hours each) with specialist instructors on the foundations of World Heritage and its relevant processes such as nominations and state of conservation, with a particular focus on heritage impact assessment (April – October 2025);
• Closing in-person workshop in Italy to finalize the activities and promote the outcomes of the forum and mentoring programme (November 2025).

During the mentoring programme, participants will be accompanied by dedicated mentors in small groups to learn about the basic foundations of World Heritage nomination processes and strategies and World Heritage management following the step-by-step methodology of conducting impact assessment for World Heritage. The participants will be requested to work on documents needed for the World Heritage nomination processes, drafting a preliminary dossier for the site they are working on, and to develop an impact assessment report that takes into account the management of World Heritage as the final result of the programme. The result of the mentoring programme will be shared during the final closing workshop, which will take place in Italy. Participants must fully engage with all phases of the project.