Timor-Leste became the 193 State Party to the UNESCO World Heritage Convention on 31 January 2017. Having ratified the Convention, Timor-Leste joins the broader international community committed to ensuring the identification, protection, conservation, presentation, and transmission to future generations of the cultural and natural heritage situated in its territory. Since Timor-Leste ratified the convention, there has been no strategy or action plan at the national level for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention.
Thus, the Timor-Leste National Commission for UNESCO (TLNCU) and UNESCO Jakarta, working together with the Ministry of Youth, Sports, Arts, and Culture and the Ministry of Tourism and Environment, held a workshop on 3 to 5 December in Dili. The workshop was facilitated by an international expert on the World Heritage Convention, Dr. David Aris Tanudirjo. The workshop was held at the Dalan ba Dame-KRAM-MJDAC hall with the objective of increasing the capacity of relevant state institutions to identify cultural heritage in the country with exceptional universal value for nomination to the World Heritage tentative list. UNESCO.
The workshop was attended by the following focal points: Secretary of State for Arts and Culture-Ministry of Youth, Sports, Arts and Culture (SEAC-MJDAC), Ministry of Tourism and Environment (MTE), National Minerals Authority (ANM), National Institute Science and Technology (INCT), and development partners such as the Alola Foundation and Timor Aid. This is the first workshop for the development of the World Heritage Tentative List, and there will be a second workshop to be held in March 2025 to prepare a dossier for the nomination of Timor-Leste Cultural Property to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in the year 2025.
