Rethinking Heritage for Sustainable Development

Rethinking Heritage for Sustainable

Development

Rethinking Heritage

for Sustainable

Development

Sophia Labadi

First published in 2022 by

UCL Press

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Text © Sophia Labadi, 2022

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Labadi, S. 2022. Rethinking Heritage for Sustainable Development. London: UCL Press.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800081925

Contents

List of figures and tables

List of acronyms and initialisms

Acknowledgements

1Introduction

2International approaches from 1970 to the turn of the millennium

3International approaches from 2000 onwards

4Project design and management

5Poverty reduction: local economic growth, tourism development and capacity building

6Gender equality and the empowerment of women

7Environmental sustainability

Conclusions and recommendations: is another world possible?

References

Index

List of figures and tables

Figures

1.1Map of Mozambique with the locations of the activities. Original map courtesy of www.freevectormaps.com, revised by Francesca Giliberto.

1.2Map of Senegal with the locations of the activities. Original map courtesy of www.freevectormaps.com, revised by Francesca Giliberto.

1.3Map of Namibia with the locations of the activities. Original map courtesy of www.freevectormaps.com, revised by Francesca Giliberto.

1.4Map of Ethiopia with the locations of the activities. Original map courtesy of www.freevectormaps.com, revised by Francesca Giliberto.

5.1Hut for artists and artisans, community village of Bandafassi (November 2019). © Sophia Labadi.

5.2Community radio, administrative, and meeting spaces, community village of Bandafassi (November 2019). © Sophia Labadi.

5.3Empty craft space in Toubacouta. © Sophia Labadi.

5.4Statue of Vasco da Gama at a garage in Inhambane. © Sophia Labadi.

6.1Community radio, Toubacouta. © Sophia Labadi.

6.2Capulana featuring Josina Machel, Mozambican Women’s Day, Inhambane (7 April 2019). © Sophia Labadi.

7.1Saloum Delta, with its inseparable natural and cultural elements. © Sophia Labadi.

7.2Artisanal fishing in the Saloum Delta (September 2019). © Sophia Labadi.

Table

2.1Aims, thematic priorities, and project areas for the World Decade for Cultural Development (as identified between 1988 and 1991).

List of acronyms and initialisms

Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without the generous financial support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK (Grant Ref: AH/S001972/1), the University of Kent (UK), and the Caligara Foundation (Italy). I am grateful for the helpful suggestions – and generous support – from the anonymous reviewers of the grant applications. At the University of Kent, Gordon Lynch and Andrew Massoura provided countless valuable comments that helped to shape the project and ensure that my funding applications were successful. I am very grateful to Ellen Swift for having helped to shape the grant application, for essential feedback provided, often at very short notice, and for having assisted with the grant management. My deepest gratitude to Shane Weller, who provided professional support, and often believed in me more than I will ever believe in myself.

The two official partners of the project – the African World Heritage Fund and ICOMOS-UK provided essential support. At the African World Heritage Fund, I am particularly indebted to Albino Jopela for many discussions on the topic and for his support, particularly for the fieldwork in Mozambique, and to Souayibou Varissou for his astute comments on the text and for sharing his expertise. At ICOMOS-UK, Clara Arokiasamy and Susan Denyer provided useful and critical comments on the results; Caroline Sandes and Anthea Longo were crucial in promoting discussions of my ideas.

I am grateful to the international advisory group who believed in the research from the start and provided comments at its different stages: Stefania Abakerli (World Bank), Tim Badman (IUCN), May Cassar (UCL), Jyoti Hosagrahar (UNESCO), Aylin Orbasli (Oxford Brookes University), Mike Robinson (University of Birmingham), and Ege Yildirim (ICOMOS). Paul Basu (SOAS) also helped to shape the original project. George Abungu served as consultant for the project, and provided countless advice and comments, during its different phases.

Francesca Giliberto was a phenomenal post-doctoral associate and an amazing moral support, who conducted some background research at UNESCO (Paris) and the World Bank (Washington), undertook additional research on similar projects in the MENA region, commented on the draft chapters and the recommendations, participated in the final meetings, and helped to build and maintain the project website at https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/heritagefordevelopment/.

I am thankful to Ibrahima Thiaw and Mouhamed Ly (both from Cheikh Anta Diop University) for facilitating the data collection in Senegal, and for comments and corrections provided during the final meeting of the project. I could not dream of a better research assistant in Senegal than Yvette Senghor (Cheikh Anta Diop University), who assisted with conducting interviews, discussed various aspects of the research, and shared my love of the Jamel Comedy Club. Youssou (at Keur Youssou) in Toubacouta was not only a great host, but tracked and contacted most of the project participants in the Saloum Delta.

In Mozambique, Énio Tembe (Kaleidoscopio) was a highly committed research assistant who also provided insightful comments on the data, results, and recommendations, and checked some of the data multiple times over the course of the research. Euclides Gonçalves (Kaleidoscopio) provided logistical support and facilitated the data collection. I am thankful to Solange Macamo and Kátia Filipe (Eduardo Mondlane University) for helping with the final meetings.

I am eternally grateful to those who participated in different meetings on the topic and/or read chapters and enriched the manuscript with their comments and edits, including Muhammad Muhammad Juma, Susanna Kari, and Enathe Hasabwamariya from UNESCO (Paris); Sidonio Matusse from UNESCO (Maputo); Alison Heritage and Nicole Franceschini from ICCROM; Angela Martins from the African Union; Ilaria Rosetti and Linda Shetabi from the ICOMOS Sustainable Development Working Group; Alice Biada from ICOMOS Cameroon; Alpha Diop from ICOMOS Mali; Tokie Brown from ICOMOS Nigeria; Harriet Hoffler from the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS); Nikki Locke from the British Council; Olga Bialostocka from the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa; Didier Houénoudé from Abomey-Calavi University; Pascal Assine, Lamine Badji, Maimouna Diallo, Nazir Ndour, Abdou Sall, and Aminata Sonko from Cheikh Anta Diop University; Felicia Fricke from the University of Copenhagen; Stela Gujamo, Filipe Mate, and Daniel Zacarias from Eduardo Mondlane University; Mark Watson from Historic Scotland; Karl Goodwin from the University of Kent; Keya Khandaker from the University of Leeds; Cornelius Holtorf and Annalisa Bolin from Linnaeus University; Antonios Vlassis from the University of Liège; Loes Veldpaus from Newcastle University; Florentine Okoni from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne; Janet Blake from Shahid Beheshti University; Claudio Zonguene from the Conservation Office of the Island of Mozambique; and the independent consultants Haifaa Abdulhalim, Rim Kelouaze, Njeri Mbure, and Dennis Rodwell.

I have no words adequate to thank Peter Gould (University of Pennsylvania) for his detailed comments on the manuscript, and for sharing with me his in-depth knowledge of heritage for development.

This book was written during the difficult times of the Covid-19 pandemic. My family provided unfailing support. My four-year-old daughter Clarys taught me about the logic of persuasion and argumentation, and about many facets of gender stereotyping. Damien, my partner, undertook some of the domestic and care work, particularly when schools were closed, so that this book could be completed. This book is dedicated to him.

1

Introduction

Neglecting heritage in the Sustainable Development Goals

Agenda 2030, adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 2015, identifies 17 interconnected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 associated targets to address the most pressing challenges of our times, ranging from the fight against poverty, hunger and climate change to the reduction of inequalities. Inclusive and ambitious, these goals are intended to leave no one behind. They have influenced the actions of international and intergovernmental organisations and governments around the world and have dictated priorities for international aid spending. Indeed, the whole world is marching to the tune of these SDGs. In 2018, 72 per cent of companies mentioned them in their annual corporate or sustainability report.¹ Universities worldwide have incorporated the goals into their operations, and some higher education rankings are now based on their implementation, for example that of The Times in the United Kingdom (UK). Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) all over the world have adopted the language of the SDGs and are working towards achieving their key targets, while local efforts towards their realisation are being addressed by concerned-citizens groups, libraries, and local business owners. The UN has even published The Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World,² which gives practical tips from turning the lights off when watching TV to printing less and taking shorter showers. The Covid-19 pandemic, the most challenging crisis the world has faced since the Second World War, has been considered by many a wake-up call to accelerate the implementation of the SDGs.³

Culture, including tangible and intangible heritage, is often presented as fundamental to addressing the SDGs: since 2010 the UN has adopted no fewer than five major policy recommendations that assert its importance as a driver and enabler of development. Heritage has been considered a driver of economic development, with international tourism one of the fastest-growing economic sectors until Covid-19. Millions of people have visited cities such as Paris, Venice, and Dubrovnik annually, facilitated by affordable travel, disposable income, and the necessary infrastructure. Tourism has been very resilient in previous crises and has shown speedy recovery. Hence it is predicted that cultural tourism will continue to be a strong driver of development in a post-coronavirus world. But heritage is more than just a driver of the economy. Woven into many of our everyday actions, it provides a gateway to many other aspects of development. In 2017 I attended a talk by Mark Lowcock, given during an ‘International Development Summit’ organised by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in London, in which he discussed his work as Permanent Secretary of the UK Department for International Development. He explained that heritage is necessary for achieving the goal of good health, and used the Ebola virus as an example. The spread of Ebola in West Africa from 2013 to 2016 was partly due to intangible heritage practices, including funeral traditions that involved close physical contact with the deceased. Curbing the spread of the disease required working with local community leaders and members to modify these rituals. Considering the fundamental role of culture (including heritage), it is not surprising that the UN has adopted so many recommendations on the topic. A number of these recommendations were adopted at the same time as the major campaign ‘The Future We Want Includes Culture’, and the Twitter hashtag ‘#culture2015goal’, which demanded a separate goal dedicated to culture and heritage in the 2030 Agenda.

If heritage (and culture in general) is so important for addressing global challenges, then why has it been marginalised from the SDGs? Heritage is directly mentioned in only one of the 169 targets (Target 11.4), which aims to ‘strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage’, which is part of Goal 11: to ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’. Some consider even this brief mention a major victory, since heritage was completely absent in previous international development frameworks. My concern is that this target focuses only on the protection of heritage. It does not link the protection and safeguarding of heritage to any broader challenges, such as poverty reduction, environmental protection and gender equality. In fact, Target 11.4 reflects a standpoint that has long been dismissed, namely that the protection and safeguarding of cultural and natural heritage is an inherently virtuous activity leading automatically to sustainable development (Labadi, 2013a; Labadi, 2019a; Labadi and Gould, 2015). Worse, the unique indicator identified for tracking progress on Target 11.4 is the ‘total expenditure (public and private) per capita spent on the preservation, protection and conservation of all cultural and natural heritage, by type of heritage, level of government, type of expenditure and type of private funding’. This indicator presents heritage as a burden and a liability. The idea that heritage can also be an asset and a form of cultural capital (Throsby, 1999) is missing. It seems that the UN recommendations on culture and development, the ‘#culture2015goal’ campaign, and all the other efforts by different actors, were disregarded in the adoption of the SDGs.

Two of the SDG targets on tourism, Targets 8.9 and 12.b, which refer to policies and tools for establishing and monitoring sustainable tourism jobs that promote local culture and products, can in some circumstances apply to heritage. However, these targets do not distinguish cultural tourism from other forms of tourism (such as beach and recreational tourism). Target 4.7 refers to education and ‘promotion of a culture of peace’, and appreciation of ‘cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development’, but no indicator relates to these issues, which thus remain vague. This marginalisation of culture and heritage has unfortunately continued since 2015. The UN uses several tools to assess progress and challenges in the implementation of the SDGs, and an overall picture is provided in an annual report. None of the annual reports released since 2016 mention heritage and/or culture. In addition, the UN holds annual evaluations of specific goals during the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. In 2018 Goals 11 and 12 were reviewed through assessing Voluntary National Reviews prepared by Member States, accompanied by the spoken contributions of panellists and statements by Member States. The final document, the Ministerial Declaration, combines all the available information on the implementation of the goals under study. The 2018 Ministerial Declaration and most of the Voluntary National Reviews show little acknowledgement or recognition of culture and/or heritage (ICOMOS, 2018: 11–16). Hence, not enough attention is being paid to these aspects in addressing the SDGs.

This volume therefore aims to understand whether and how heritage has contributed to three key dimensions of sustainable development (namely poverty reduction, gender equality and environmental sustainability) within the context of its marginalisation from the SDGs and from previous international development agendas. Heritage is understood here in its broadest sense as including both tangible and intangible manifestations as well as its entangled cultural and natural dimensions (the more political dimension of heritage is discussed below). The timing of this work is crucial. Improving people’s lives, particularly those of disenfranchised communities, is the main ambition of the SDGs. However, voices have recently begun to criticise this framework as insufficiently challenging of models that are currently failing, evidenced by continued severe poverty, inequality, resource depletion and the recent sanitary crisis. Is the marginalisation of heritage a setback in realising the international development agenda? Does heritage provide a new model for human development that might be better suited to addressing some global challenges? Is heritage one of the missing links that could help to address the SDGs more efficiently? And if so, how can heritage contribute to key challenges? It is important to consider these questions now, while Agenda 2030 is still ongoing. If heritage is fundamental for sustainable development, then it must be addressed more thoroughly in the current SDGs, in the framework that will replace them post-2030, or as a stand-alone paradigm.

To provide in-depth engagement with the topic, I adopt comprehensive historical, multi-scalar (international, national, local) and interdisciplinary approaches. I begin my investigation with a comprehensive history of the international approaches to culture (including heritage) for development from 1970 up to the present. Rather than concentrating only on heritage, I provide a more complete picture by outlining a history of culture in general and its connections to development. This is because, at the international level, heritage is often discussed in the broader context of culture. In these historical chapters I focus on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the World Bank. UNESCO, being the only international intergovernmental organisation of the UN system with a mandate on culture, has been leading efforts to integrate culture (including heritage) in different international development frameworks. The World Bank is the leading development agency that has adopted, adapted, and put into practice some of the key ideas and models of culture (mainly heritage) and development proposed by UNESCO. My long-term direct involvement with both organisations (see below) has been invaluable in this research.

I drafted this comprehensive history through undertaking archival research at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris and at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC, complemented by face-to-face interviews with key actors and stakeholders. I travelled to Belgium, France, Canada, Spain, and the United States to interview experts who have worked in UNESCO and World Bank projects on culture for development, as well as for the main organisations that led the global campaign ‘The Future We Want Includes Culture’ (2013–15),⁴ such as the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), Culture Action Europe, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), and the International Federation of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity (IFCCD).

Case studies

The historical and international framework on culture (including heritage) for development provides only one side of the story, however. For this reason, I also assess how narratives on culture for development framed in an international (mainly Western) arena have been implemented, adopted, adapted, transformed, and resisted on the ground. I identify the negative and positive impacts of all the international projects implemented in sub-Saharan Africa that aimed to provide evidence of the contribution to development of culture (understood primarily as heritage) in time for the negotiation of the SDGs. I thus examine past instances that sought to demonstrate the contribution of heritage for development to explain the present situation. Understanding what happened in these projects, their legacy, and what they can teach us in terms of design, management and implementation is very important, especially since more recent initiatives adopted their approaches and methods in an uncritical manner. Learning lessons from the past through critical analyses ensures that we avoid repeating mistakes in the future. These four projects are: ‘Harnessing Diversity for Sustainable Development and Social Change in Ethiopia’ (July 2009–December 2012); ‘Strengthening Cultural and Creative Industries and Inclusive Policies in Mozambique’ (August 2008–June 2013); ‘Sustainable Cultural Tourism in Namibia’ (February 2009–February 2013); and ‘Promoting Initiatives and Cultural Industries in Senegal – Bassari Country and Saloum Delta’ (September 2008–December 2012). Although not evident from some of the titles, intangible and tangible heritage were their focus. These projects were funded by the Millennium Development Goals Achievement Fund (MDG-F), set up in 2006 by the Government of Spain and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to accelerate progress towards attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Between 2000 and 2015, the eight MDGs aimed to tackle major challenges ranging from eradicating extreme poverty to promoting gender equality and ensuring environmental sustainability. Convinced that the omission of culture was a determining factor in the previous lack of progress towards the MDGs, the Government of Spain funded a theme on ‘Culture and Development’ as one of eight challenges selected for the MDG-F (UNDP/Spain Millennium Development Goals Achievement Fund, 2007; Labadi, 2019b: 76–7; Bandarin, Hosagrahar and Albernaz, 2001).

Each of these projects received major funding from the MDG-F (at least US$5 million per project), which is remarkable considering that heritage (and cultural) schemes usually lack significant investment. The scale of funding reflected strong political support from the Spanish Government. Through this investment, Spain wished to demonstrate the power of culture (particularly heritage) for accelerating implementation of the MDGs and the three pillars of sustainable development, particularly the goals on poverty eradication (economic pillar), gender equality (social pillar), and environmental sustainability. These challenges are also central to the SDGs, with SDG 1 focusing on ‘No poverty’; SDG 5 on ‘Gender equality’ and SDG 15 on ‘Life on land’. Agenda 2063 from the African Union (AU), the master plan for transforming Africa into the global powerhouse of the future, also focuses on these challenges, particularly Goal 1 on ‘high standards of living’, Goal 7 on ‘environmental sustainability’ and Goal 17 on ‘full gender equality’. There is thus a contemporaneity in the projects I have selected for analysis. Through such a focus on four cases, the three key challenges of poverty reduction (Chapter 5), gender equality (Chapter 6) and environmental sustainability (Chapter 7) can be considered at length. Hence, this book moves beyond the mere consideration of heritage management and conservation to address its contribution to wider and pressing challenges.

It is appropriate to select sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical focus for the research because there is often an immediate association of this sub-region with issues of development. I have sat on many evaluation panels for grant applications in the Humanities and Development, and most of the research proposals concentrated on sub-Saharan Africa. The great majority of sub-Saharan countries face acute challenges, which is why 33 in total are classified as ‘least developed countries’ by the UN. For instance, 48 per cent of the population of Mozambique live below the national poverty line (World Bank, 2018a: 11). Extreme poverty, low levels of educational attainment, and the HIV/AIDS epidemics have all contributed to the precarious status of women and girls in the country (USAID/Mozambique, 2019). In recent years, Mozambique has also faced large-scale environmental challenges, including widespread deforestation and overfishing. It is not therefore surprising that the sub-region is the highest regional recipient of international aid. By focusing on sub-Saharan Africa I also continue the debate on whether international development aid is useful for its culture sector (see Labadi, 2019a), or whether this aid is in fact the reason why Africa faces so many challenges, thereby expanding on earlier criticisms (e.g. Moyo, 2009; Easterley, 2006; Escobar, 1995). Additionally, sub-Saharan African independence and political leaders have regularly called for a re-appropriation of their culture for endogenous development, rather than depending on foreign inputs, as charted in Chapter 2 of this book and echoed in Agenda 2063. This sub-region thus provides a rich terrain for analyses.

More specifically, the programme ‘Strengthening Cultural and Creative Industries and Inclusive Policies in Mozambique’ was implemented between August 2008 and June 2013 in the Nampula, Inhambane, and Maputo regions. With a budget of US$5 million, it was executed by UNESCO (as lead agency), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Its official aims were to promote community-based cultural tourism through setting up four pilot cultural tourism tour packages. Two were prepared on the Island of Mozambique, a World Heritage site in the north of the country, and two in Inhambane city in the south, with the hope that they could be replicated in other parts of Mozambique as well (see Figure 1.1). Large-scale capacity-building was also provided, to boost the quantity and quality of cultural goods and services, with the intention that these would lead to increased market access and better income generation in tourism-related sectors (such as restaurants, craftmanship and the creative industries). To ensure that the capacity-building activities were comprehensive and inclusive, the legal framework was also improved, for instance through the draft revision and draft regulation of Mozambique’s copyright law and its related rights.

Figure 1.1 Map of Mozambique with the locations of the activities. Original map courtesy of www.freevectormaps.com , revised by Francesca Giliberto.

Women were a key target of these capacity-building activities, through ensuring at least an equal number of female participants. The project also aimed to improve the use of traditional knowledge systems in local development, and to mainstream socio-cultural elements in strategies combating HIV/AIDS, as a strategy to empower women. Finally, activities aimed to improve reforestation efforts and encourage the sustainable management of forestry resources. Two wood banks were created, one in the northern province of Nampula and another in the capital Maputo, to provide artisans with secure access to raw materials for their products and prevent, in the process, illegal wood cutting. As part of efforts to replant native and endangered tree species that support intangible heritage practices, mwendje seeds were also widely distributed in Zavala. Mwendje trees are used to make timbila (singular mbila), traditional xylophones inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2008. I travelled to the three regions (Nampula, Inhambane and Maputo) where the different activities took place to assess their impacts.

‘Promoting Initiatives and Cultural Industries in Senegal – Bassari Country and Saloum Delta’ was carried out from September 2008 to December 2012. Benefiting from a budget of US$6.5 million, this project was implemented by UNESCO (lead organisation), the UNDP, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), and UNFPA through different mechanisms. The key results were the inscription of the ‘Saloum Delta’ and the ‘Bassari Country: Bassari, Fula and Bedik Cultural Landscapes’ on the World Heritage List in 2011 and 2012 respectively, followed by the construction of an interpretation centre in Toubacouta (Saloum Delta) and a community village in Bandafassi (Bassari Country) (see Figure 1.2). These inscriptions and new structures aimed to strengthen and accelerate socio-economic benefits, including tourism. A multifunction space, the interpretation centre in Toubacouta planned to house 30 booths for artists and artisans; a room for women to prepare and sell their products; a space for rehearsal for local groups; a multimedia centre and a library for young people; and a museum on the Outstanding Universal Value of the property. The centre would also promote the economic growth of two promising sectors: fishing and cashew nuts. Sharing a similarly ambitious plan, the community village in Bandafassi, to be managed by locals, would provide information on the values of the site: food security though crops to be cultivated in its garden, with some surplus sold to tourists. Tourists would be housed in huts, could visit ethno-cultural spaces reproducing the architectural techniques of each local minority, and buy local crafts from an exhibition space. Fonio (the Senegalese couscous) and shea (a tree whose seeds are used to produce shea butter) were identified as two promising sectors, whose growth would be piloted from the community village.

Figure 1.2 Map of Senegal with the locations of the activities. Original map courtesy of www.freevectormaps.com , revised by Francesca Giliberto.

As part of this initiative in Senegal, two community radios were also built for locals to share news and events and discuss some issues in local languages, including gender equality and the empowerment of women. Women were also targeted to improve the competitiveness, quality, quantity, market reach and added value of their crafts, tourism, and fonio and shea merchandise. Natural resources were also supposed to be protected, to ensure livelihood sustainability for vulnerable groups. Two particular areas had been selected: the support of artisanal fishery and the fight against (mangrove) deforestation. I travelled to Dakar, the Saloum Delta, and Bassari Country to hear from the stakeholders how these different facets of the programme were set up and implemented.

‘Sustainable Cultural Tourism in Namibia’, coordinated by UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the ILO, and UN-Habitat, ran from February 2009 to February 2013, with a budget of US$5,976,934. It aimed to build nine pilot sites for cultural tourism development in remote rural regions, in Khorixas and Opuwo (in the Kunene region), in Tsumkwe (Otjozondjupa region), Rundu (in the Kavango region), Otjinene (in the Omaheke region), King Nehale Conservancy (Oshikoto region), and Duineveld (in the Hardap region) and trails in the Omusati region and Katima in the Caprivi Strip (see Figure 1.3).

Figure 1.3 Map of Namibia with the locations of the activities. Original map courtesy of www.freevectormaps.com , revised by Francesca Giliberto.

Linked to the liberation struggle or the post-colonial period, these fully equipped heritage/interpretation centres housing new exhibitions intended to transform the map of tourism, and to move away from its sole focus on the colonial history of Namibia (at sites such as Swakopmund, Lüderitz, and Henties Bay), as a vehicle for poverty reduction, particularly among women and other disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. To ensure such a transformation, various committees were set up, including ministries, national government institutions, regional and local government and community representatives. Capacity-building training was provided focusing on topics that included tour-guiding and producing, marketing and selling traditional handicraft. In addition, the ‘Start Your Cultural Business’ training efforts aimed to expose a large number of individuals to the entrepreneurial opportunities around cultural heritage utilisation across