Thanks to the continued support of the Government of Flanders (Belgium), the World Heritage Online Map Platform is being expanded to include World Heritage properties in Africa, thereby extending the benefits of this Geographic Information System to the region and enhancing the monitoring capacity of digital tool.

The World Heritage Online Map Platform (WHOMP) is an innovative online tool designed to assist decision-makers, in particular States Parties and site managers, in monitoring the state of conservation of World Heritage sites through the use of geospatial data.

A second phase of development will now focus on the inclusion of World Heritage sites in the Africa region, with a view to extending the platform to properties in all regions in subsequent phases. The Africa region comprises 47 States Parties to the World Heritage Convention and includes 108 World Heritage properties. In line with UNESCO’s Global Priority Africa and the Strategy for World Heritage in Africa, the inclusion of World Heritage properties in Africa on the World Heritage Online Map Platform will contribute to strengthening capacities in the region for a better conservation and management of World Heritage sites, to implement effectively and sustainably the World Heritage Convention.

A series of knowledge-sharing and capacity development sessions will be organised to explore best practices in geospatial information technologies for heritage protection, and bring together site managers in Africa and from the region that served as a pilot for the World Heritage Online Map Platform, that is Europe and North America, all facing similar threats.

This second phase will also seek to integrate near real-time alerts and state of the art datasets into the platform to enhance its monitoring capabilities to provide better insight into potential risks and threats that could have an impact on the Outstanding Universal Value of World Heritage properties.

WHOMP is being developed in response to a well-recognised global gap in spatial datasets and tools, providing an invaluable resource for World Heritage practitioners around the world to take transformative action. The first phase of development began in 2021, and focused on the collection and harmonisation of geo-referenced World Heritage boundaries in Europe and North America as a pilot region, harnessing synergies with the Third Cycle of Periodic Reporting under the Convention between 2022 and 2023, and the Retrospective Inventory project.

The World Heritage Centre is grateful the Government of Flanders for its committed and continued support in the development of this tool.