Our story as Regional Secretariat
Having more than 300 cities as members,
the headquarters in Quebec found it quite daunting to directly engage with each of the member cities scattered across different geographies, steeped in different cultures coming from different languages. That is why the General Secretariat decided to establish Regional Secretariats, starting with the one in Budapest, Hungary in 2006. However, as the OWHC was organized and operated centering around Quebec City and cities of Europe and Americas, its presence in Asia and the Pacific was only minimal until recently.
Thus, in 2012, which marked the 40th anniversary of signing the 1972 World Heritage Convention, representatives of World Heritage Cities in the Asia and Pacific region convened in Gyeongju, the Republic of Korea. They had active discussions there and agreed that the Asian and Pacific cities also needed to form their own network within the OWHC to share their experiences with one another. So they made a formal request to the General Secretariat to open a Regional Secretariat in the Asia Pacific region as well, and in December 2013, one year after the request, the OWHC Asia-Pacific Regional Secretariat(OWHC-AP) opened in Gyeongju, the Republic of Korea.
Since the Asia Pacific region hadn’t had much of a presence before, it required tremendous effort for the OWHC-AP to carve out a fully established position within the Organization. Even until the 13th OWHC World Congress in Arequipa, Peru, only eight cities in the Asia Pacific region came to attend the World Congress. However, the situation has changed in just six years of opening the OWHC-AP in the region, with the number of member cities rapidly increasing from 17 in 2013 to 50 in 2020.
The OWHC-AP is currently maintaining a very active presence by organizing city-to-city networking meetings on top of the various events such as community photo contests and student association activities. It also publishes essay books and quarterly magazines to promote the member cities and the Organization.
Going forward, the OWHC-AP will continue to make its best efforts to lead sustainable development of the World Heritage Cities in the region by connecting member cities, promoting the Outstanding Universal Values of the World Heritage Sites, and helping the citizens discover and cherish the beauty their cities have kept.