The Reality of Heritage Management in Arab Countries and the Prospects for Its Governance

Abstract

As members of UNESCO, the United Nation’s international agency specialized in the fields of education, culture and science, Countries nowadays, pay special attention to heritage. Heritage with its various components, is considered one of the most interesting cultural topics, whether it is tangible, cultural and natural or intangible cultural. Moreover, it is considered as one of the main interest axes of the UNESCO, it has been embodied through an arsenal of international instruments, which constitutes a basic framework that helps countries to develop their heritage policies with the aim of protecting, preserving and safeguarding it and making it a basic pillar of sustainable development. The most of Arab countries have become involved in the heritage policies of UNESCO by ratifying majority of their international heritage conventions and through their interest about the systems of the world cultural and natural heritage and intangible cultural heritage. However, progress at this level has not been uniform among countries, as some of them are still at the beginning of the process of developing heritage policies in order to respond to the ratified international conventions. Many of Arab countries have achieved important progress in developing their legislative and institutional heritage system, also in developing the collective awareness about the importance of heritage in the process of sustainable development; so they have released important gains in the field of protection, preservation and safeguard of heritage wealth in its various components. Despite the achieved progress, those countries were still in need of more effort to develop their heritage Policies and ensuring the governance of heritage management, therefore they must provide an appropriate legislative and institutional framework that conforms to the principles and provisions included in ratified international instruments and their guidelines. Keeping in mind some good experiences at the Arab level, this paper addresses the problems faced by heritage management in Arab countries, mainly those related to the absence of policies on one hand and their limited effectiveness on the other hand. Those experiences can be consider as an attempt to monitor the reality of heritage policies in Arab countries, their challenges, and clarifying its needs and governance conditions.