State Party & Government 

VMAST - UNESCOs Visitor Management Assessment & Strategy Tool

>> for improving the benefits of tourism through strategic visitor management

Responsible tourism development and visitor management is an essential part of the management responsibility and challenge of site management authorities. Within an increasingly VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world 'best practice' in visitor management is not a status. It is an aspiration and ongoing commitment to improve practice. 

So how can States Parties representatives provide the necessary support and capacity building to the network of sites in their country?  improve and appropriately adapt practice?

VMAST is developed specifically to help World Heritage site management authorities monitor and improve visitor management for the protection of World Heritage sites and at the same time contribute towards local development objectives. Developed as a generic framework applicable across natural and cultural World Heritage sites, and as a self-assessment and strategy tool fit for all budgets, VMAST could help States Parties bring diversity into shared purpose. 

VMAST supports:

Monitoring  >  Improved understanding

Budgeted activities  >  Feasible ambitions

Communication  >  Improved outreach

Capacity development  >  Strengthened capacities

Collaboration  >  Increased impact

More about VMAST

WHETS - World Heritage Exchange Trading Systems

>> for improving provisioning through moneyless trade and exchange

Community sustainability relies on the resiliency of the local economy. Tourism dependent communities are specifically vulnerable to disruptions in the tourism sector, which may threaten provisioning (access to basic products and services) within a community. 

How could National Governments (as States Parties representatives) contribute towards economic resilience and self-sufficiency within local communities hosting World Heritage?

WHETS is a portfolio of systems that can improve provisioning through moneyless trade and exchange. The systems making up WHETS do all have realise use cases. 

Governments could as part of strategy development and implementation, invite local product and service providers to collaboratively consider various exchange and trading systems, and adapt and apply the systems to serves local sustainability and development objectives.

WHETS portfolio of systems that could be applied locally:

Mutual credit  >  Means of exchange

Credit clearing  >  Reducing the need for money and banks

Use-credit obligations  >  Means of storing value

Capacity vouchers  >  Allowing consumers to invest spare cash in local retailers

Credit commons  >  For scaling

More about WHETS

WHAO - World Heritage Autonomous Organisations

>> for improving participatory and/or polycentric governance through decentralised technology

Stakeholder involvement, collaboration and coordination in the stewardship of World Heritage is a general challenge across States Parties and government organisations with a responsibility for World Heritage and the sustainable development of communities and regions. While overall coordination will be formally organised, the use of technology and specifically internet enabled communication and coordination (web-2 technology) is now universally applied supporting participatory and multi-stakeholder (polycentric) governance. At the same time new and innovative (web-3) technologies are emerging which allows the general public to self-coordinate and mobilise in ways like never before. While the applications of such technologies are emergent, they could potentially cause both welcoming and more challenging disruptions to current ways of governance.

How could governments and officials assigned with a direct and/or indirect responsibility in implementation of the World Heritage Convention, in a safe and non-obstructive way, learn about and test the potentials of such technology in a relevant context? 

WHAO is an approach to bring the benefits of decentralised (web-3) technologies to the governance of World Heritage. It is emerging from the application of such technologies in organisations in general (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) and World Heritage Catalysis specifically. WHAO is designed to support implementation of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, and an inclusive platform to bring diversity into shared purpose. WHAO offers a safe testing ground for the use of web-3 technologies where the  consideration of and feedback from government organisations and representatives will help inform WHAO and the future application in the context of World Heritage.

>  Collaborative problem solving

>  Secure & transparent voting by citizens and on key issues of interest 

>  Rewarding contributions

> Secure & decentralised treasury management

>  Transparent governance 

More about WHAO