By Ceci Lo
The UNESCO World Heritage Program, focuses on spotting, conserving and safeguarding global cultural and natural heritage sites. The program also encourages global co-operation, local involvement and public understanding in the management of sites like the Great Wall of China in China and Easter Island in Chile. This program responds to environmental degradation and negative human activities that may harm the heritages.
Right from the start of the conference, the chairs suggested rearranging the desks and chairs to resemble the setup of the ‘real world’ United Nations, evoking suspense as to whether the quality of discussion will be up to the ‘real’ UN standard. “We are half an hour behind schedule, they are going to kill us," the chair sighed after a fierce discussion on ways to allocate the setup. With the supposedly most aggressive US delegate ‘absent and not voting’, the session starts with a chill GSL that an overwhelming amount of delegates are involved in.
The morning session evolves around why the program is inefficient and ways to solve it. Many delegates specify in the GSL that the priority is to allocate enough representatives and resources for every country in the UN so that everyone can take part in the discussion equally and to assist LEDCs to gain enough support they need for preservation. So that equality and preservation is not just reserved for the rich.
While some are arguing to support all countries for the overall good, questions are raised about if developed countries should fund LEDCs even when ‘they are not benefitting [more developed countries] anything’ said the delegate of Iceland. Moreover, developed countries are gathering to discuss ways to secure their funds from corruption in LEDCs or being used to fund aggressive wars.
Moreover, there are also discussion on implementing CVI (climate vulnerability index) which assess the vulnerability of heritages to climate change to allow informed decision making. Currently, LEDCs are used mostly in Europe and Australia, ie the majority of LEDCs are not implementing this index. Hence some delegates call for attention for using CVI so as to narrow down the power dynamics globally.
When discussions have not been made on one specific topic, there is a key concern to whether the council will be able to concentrate on an aligning agenda needed to resemble the ‘real’ UN conference vibes after a delightful lunch everyone has been cheering for.
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