The Foundation for the Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage of Rabat, chaired by Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Hasnaa, is participating in the twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from November 30 to December 12, 2023, by organizing side events with the main focus on “Cultural Heritage and Climate Change”.
Through this important participation, the Foundation seeks to enhance the presence of cultural heritage at the heart of discussions related to climate change and sustainable development, by addressing the relationship between tangible and intangible cultural heritage and climate change. To this end, the Foundation has organized two side events in the Blue Zone at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28).
The first event focussed on intangible cultural heritage. In this connection, the Foundation for the Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage of Rabat, in partnership with the Filantropia Cortés Solari Foundation, held a side event under the title: “Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development”, on December 2, 2023, at the Science for Climate Action Pavilion, in the Blue Zone. The event gathered international experts to discuss the importance of investing in knowledge and skills acquired in the past, with a view to designing a sustainable approach to environmental issues in the furure, based on intangible cultural heritage and drawing on inherited skills, to deal with environmental problems from a multi-dimensional perspective.
The second side event, held on December 5, 2023, focussed on tangible cultural heritage and dealt with the topic : “Lessons of Resilience in African Heritage Sites: A Contribution to Finding Innovative Solutions and Building the Capacities of Various Stakeholders”. This is the second side event in which the Foundation has participated within the 5th meeting of the Paris Committee on Capacity Building (PCCB), by organizing a scientific meeting at which a number of speakers shared, within one hour, the lessons learned from the heritage of African cities, namely the example of Morocco’s ancient cities, how they are built within their context and environment and how this can be adapated at the presdent time, relying on knowledge and technology. The meeting was concluded by a number of recommendations aimed at enhancing the resilience and sustainability of today’s cities.
These important activities have been organized on the occasion of the 28th Conference of the United Nations Framework Conventionon Climate Change (COP28), to consolidate one of the main tasks carried out by the Foundation for the Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage of Rabat with a view to pooling the efforts of various stakeholders in the field of cultural heritage and compelemnting the ‘’Foundation’s Meetings’’ aimed at creating national and international platforms for exchange and opening a genuine dialogue to further convergence of viewpoints among the various stakeholders. This is precisely the goal that the Foundation seeks to achieve through its valuable participation in the COP28, while these two side events are expected to provide an opportunity for professionals, researchers, institutions and civil society to discuss issues of cultural heritage and climate change, in order to put culture at the heart of our thinking and concerns regarding te climate.
