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From Awareness to Action: World Heritage in Young Hands

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At a workshop in Bulange, Uganda, held in August 2021 the focus was on how to engage youth in protecting, preserving, and promoting World Heritage. The goal was to sensitise youth about heritage through learning from past legacies, understanding what elders live with today, and what they will pass on to the future generations. With a focus on the UNESCO World Heritage Kasubi Tombs site (No.1022), this workshop was important because cultural and natural heritage are both invaluable sources for life and inspiration, that require actionable innovations to transmit heritage knowledge, create heritage-related employment, and preserve the moral development of societies, while promoting young people’s cultural and intellectual development in a globalised world. In this blog, I make the case for increasing grassroots funding for youth-led activities to protect and preserve heritage, as well as to integrate information computing technology (ICT) to help disseminate heritage knowledge globally in a variety of digital formats.

Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi (Uganda) © UNESCO

What is World Heritage?

World heritage includes places as diverse and unique as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador, the Taj Mahal in India, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Grand Canyon in the USA, or the Kasubi Tombs in Uganda.[i] They are designated as places that are of outstanding universal value to humanity, and as such have been inscribed in the World Heritage List. Nevertheless, these sites face major problems, such as pollution, earthquakes, and other natural disasters, poaching, armed conflict and war, uncontrolled urbanisation, and unchecked tourist development. Young people, as the future generation, still lack knowledge to contribute to the sustainability of heritage in all forms. But they are the ones who can innovate, through local activities, that can offer potential solutions to protect, preserve, and promote Heritage around them. Moreover, they are also skilled at using new digital communications tools, which, if used effectively, can help in implementing concrete solutions to protect these sites.

As a UNESCO initiative, developed in 1998, the World Heritage in Young Hands Educational Resource Kit, for secondary school teachers, advances heritage sensitisation in schools as one approach towards raising awareness among youth.[ii] This has contributed to the transnational conception of heritage protection, preservation, and promotion. While providing a global tool for schools, those not enrolled are, however, excluded from various forms of engagement in preserving local, national, and world heritage. It is important to equally involve out-of-school youth in the protection of our common cultural as well as natural heritage through increasing youth-led initiatives to protect, preserve, and promote heritage.

Varying Forms of World Heritages

The UNESCO Convention concerning the protection of the World cultural and Natural Heritage[iii], describes heritage in varying forms – the cultural and natural heritage. These two, furthermore vary in the forms of tangible and intangible aspects. Tangible cultural heritage is movable and immovable. Immovables include archaeological sites, architectural works, historical centres, monuments, cultural landscapes, historical parks, and botanical gardens as well as sites of industrial archaeology. Movable tangible heritage on the other hand, includes museum collections, libraries, and archives. Examples of intangible cultural heritage include music, dance, literature, theatre, oral traditions, traditional performances, social practices, traditional know-how, crafts, cultural spaces, and religious ceremonies and for natural heritage. Examples of tangible and immovable heritage are natural and maritime parks of ecological interests, geological and physical formations, and landscapes of outstanding natural beauty.

Protect, Preserve, and Promote

In a UNESCO-funded workshop on “Empowering Ugandan Youth through Culture and Heritage” held in Bulange, Uganda, in August 2021, 35 cultural leaders discussed the role of youth in protecting, conserving, and promoting the Kasubi Tombs built in 1882 (UNESCO’s World Heritage Site No. 1022). Utilising the World Heritage in Young Hands Educational Resource Kit, they concluded that:

  • There is a risk that future generations no longer know much about cultural heritage preservation. If youth are not actively engaged in protecting and promoting heritage sites, they will sooner or later be littered with hotels, stadiums, and arcades that exploit the touristic potential of cultural sites.
  • We need to preserve heritage sites as an expression of humanistic values that ancestors created with the intention of telescoping them to the future, allowing generations to interpret their symbolic meaning, and investigate past customs of human interaction globally.
  • Heritage may not immediately appeal to younger generations. Still, knowledge gaps ought to be addressed, and misconceptions dispelled as an inclusive transition to promote an authentic heritage value system among youth.

The Youth Have Their Say

Workshop participants suggested that a regional transnational governance framework under UNESCO be supported, one that would be designed to promote a grassroots-based system driven by all categories of young people to enable them to act beyond awareness in support of promoting heritage. There could be a potential intra-regional role for the African Union in such an initiative.

While alternatives for young people to protect, preserve, and promote tangible heritage sites were made by speakers, it was also suggested that outreach initiatives such as using cartoons to mobilise youngsters in support of World Heritage protection and promotion be used. In addition, it was proposed that families engage young people in extra-curricular events such as excursions to nearby heritage places of interest, youth camps, cultural festivals, and exhibitions, as well as participate in role play activities to recreate traditional social events, such as processions, ceremonies, youth camps and festivals, using tradition to enable, integrate, and promote youth development for continued World Heritage preservation for future generations.

The way forward

Participants recommended various ways to move from sensitisation to action to protect, preserve, and promote world heritage from the perspective of youth engagement. Firstly, nation states should give responsibility for overseeing the security needs of cultural sites to youth through integrating them more into heritage management. While teaching based on the World Heritage kit by practitioners should include more about the provision of security as an essential factor for youth to innovate in relation to heritage related projects, global leaders should also ensure adequate budgets for heritage funds for youth to tap into and protect world heritage.

Moreover, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre should support custodians of heritage sites in transforming the intangible value of heritage sites into written descriptions. In addition, youth learning centres, or interpretive centres, should be constructed by nation states at bigger sites to facilitate the preservation of heritage. Lastly, there is an urgent need for better use of ICT and social media by Ministries of Culture among member states of UNESCO. This will facilitate the digitalisation of knowledge dissemination on heritage across the world, along with inviting youth to engage in diverse and creative ways for promotion, protection, and preservation of world heritage for the future generations.

 

[i] Definition of World Heritage by UNESCO. (see https://whc.unesco.org/en/faq/19/  retrieved on 11 November 2021)

[ii] UNESCO, World Heritage in Young Hands Educational Resource Kit for secondary school teachers (1998). The resource kit complement other initiatives including World Heritage Youth Forums, World Heritage Adventures cartoon series, Training seminars for educators on the use of the resource Kit, On-site skills-development courses for young people, workshops & conferences, and the World Heritage Volunteers initiative.

[iii] Varying Forms of Heritage are described in the UNESCO Convention concerning the protection of the World cultural and Natural Heritage (1972) see https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/. Retrieved on 06/12.2021

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Umar Kabanda holds a PhD and a master’s degree in Governance and Regional Integration, as well as a Post Graduate Diploma in Human Rights and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Currently he is the Managing Director of Kalube consults limited and a Policy leader Fellow with the School of Transnational Governance in the European University Institute in Italy.  

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EADI ISS Conference 2021 | For the redistribution of water, framing matters!

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In the face of increasing pressure on global water resources, a degree of inventiveness in finding just and sustainable ways to ensure access to water is required. The redistribution of water is one possible way in which this could be done. But ongoing research on elite responses to a recent water scarcity crisis in South Africa shows that the redistribution of water resources will not go uncontested by water elites and that existing narratives on the sharing of water are not creating the extent of solidarity needed. We need to frame this action differently, writes Lize Swartz.

Water is intricately linked to development, both to ensure or improve people’s quality of life, as well as to help secure livelihoods such as subsistence farming. But increasing pressure on water resources due to a changing climate, as well as an increased demand for water, amongst others, is making it difficult to even sustain current access to water, let alone provide new access to populations that are not yet connected to formal water networks.

Millions of people around the world are still waiting for the moment they can turn on a tap and watch water gushing from it, to be able to flush a toilet, or to bathe under running water. In light of the need to keep an expanding access to water and sanitation facilities, but also with the realisation that less and less water is available per capita, new ways of thinking about ensuring access to water are needed.

‘Sharing is scaring’

During a recent panel session on inclusive development and water governance linked to the 2021 EADI ISS Conference, the likelihood of having to share water came up toward the end of the discussion. Emanuele Fantini[1] suggested that it’s not as straightforward as ‘sharing is caring’ when it comes to water, pointing to the many complexities that would affect the governance of water redistribution by using the term ‘sharing is scaring’. Joyeeta Gupta[2], one of the panel convenors, observed that it is likely that “there will be no win-win situation; it will be a win-lose situation” when it comes to sharing water. As one of the main challenges, she recognised the need to convince water elites of the necessity of sharing water.

My ongoing research on elite responses to water scarcity shows exactly how difficult it will be to get ‘buy-in’ from those who are able to share water: I  investigate the way in which elite water users navigated the collapse of three urban water supply systems in South Africa in 2016. With ‘buy-in’ I mean that those who have sufficient water agree to share it, provided that they still have enough water to meet their own basic water needs. ‘Elite water users’ in the context of South Africa can be considered those who either have water and sanitation connections within their own homes, or who have access to non-municipal water resources such as groundwater (through boreholes) that can replace or supplement municipal water.

Some of the preliminary conclusions of my research are that:

  • Basic water needs are different for different socio-economic groups in South Africa. For example, irrigating private gardens to ensure that lawns remain green and plants continue to grow may be considered a basic need by those owning gardens, but not by those without gardens. This may be linked to the pride that is taken in being able to maintain ‘life’ by tending to an urban nature.
  • The way in which water is used is closely linked to the socio-economic and cultural identity and status of water users; water is much more than a product linked to hygiene, for example – having abundant water is a reminder of a high standard of living and prosperity. Swimming pools, fountains, and running water in general is considered part and parcel of a ‘good life’.
  • Water is closely linked to emotional and mental health; having sufficient water creates a sense of peace and safety among water users, which turns into anxiety when the threat of water scarcity or shortages looms. My research found that retaining a sense of water security seems to trump other considerations that may inform how water is used and whether and how it is shared.

Allegations of mismanagement stand in the way of viewing water scarcity as collective problem  

In addition to the symbolic importance of water that moves beyond the idea of water needs as largely material, political factors may also affect the willingness of water elites to share water. My research found, for example, that specific interpretations of the collapse of urban water supply systems as being caused by municipal mismanagement and water losses through leakages in general may prevent water users from seeing water scarcity as a collective problem and responding to it in a similar way. Those who hold such views are unlikely to cooperate with local governments to ensure that those without water are helped out of own accord. My research also shows that water is hoarded by households out of fear of not being able to access it in the future and is mostly shared with those elites’ own social networks.

Also, in the communities studied, distrust stretches beyond the local level and is rooted in perceptions regarding the legitimacy and accountability of the national government. A certain level of mistrust is based on its perceived disability to govern in the interests of water elites, who in South Africa for the most part are also socio-economic elites. This also affects the extent to which water scarcity is considered a collective problem requiring collective action, similar to the above observation.

Capping the water use of elites?

Thus, ensuring elite buy-in of the need to redistribute water will not be a simple task. The sharing of water may involve the limiting of water use for elites by imposing a maximum daily or monthly limit (‘holding back’ water) and making greater amounts of water available for other water users who have used less water. Another example is the redistribution of groundwater by pumping it into municipal water tanks that are accessible to all. But limiting the water use of some households and not others is likely to cause dissatisfaction and perhaps even resistance.

What complicates matters further is that the amount of water used in informal urban areas is generally far lower than that of the amount used in formal urban areas – while the redistribution of water is likely to reduce the amount of water used by water elites, water use may not increase in areas where there are different water needs and priorities and where the majority of residents still share taps and toilets. This may thus not create the impression that water has been distributed more equitably so that everyone gets ‘more or less the same’.

The overall reduction of water on the other hand may be beneficial in countries like South Africa where the water supply is under severe stress. But convincing water users that it is possible – and desirable – to use less water will be a challenge.

In light of this difficulty, the redistribution narrative – and indeed a narrative of ‘sharing is caring’ – will need to be reconsidered. A reduction in the amount of water used by water elites that frees up water for a municipal ‘reserve’ may be achieved more easily if it is framed in light of the need for a water reserve to prevent the water scarcity and corresponding water use restrictions – the idea of ‘using less water now so that there will be water in the future’. This de facto would free up water that is needed elsewhere in urban areas. Elite water users may have to be convinced that limiting their water use will benefit them in the future, and that this sacrifice is worth making.

[1] Senior Lecturer in Water Politics and Communication at IHE Delft

[2] Professor of Environment and Development in the Global South at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam and IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in Delft

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.[

About the author:

Lize Swartz

Lize Swartz is the editor-in-chief of ISS Blog Bliss and a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam, where she researches political dynamics of socio-hydrological systems. She is part of the newly formed Transformative Methodologies Working Group situated in the Civic Innovation Research

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Women’s Week| Menstruation: from concealed topic to part of the public agenda by Jacqueline Gaybor

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Menstruation and its multiple social, economic, environmental, health and technological dimensions surprisingly is starting to be discussed globally, in multiple arenas and under very different and sometimes opposing frameworks. But how is this issue positioned at this early stage of an emerging research agenda? Which actions have been implemented? This blog is a reflection on the importance of thinking outside the box.

The UN and INGOs: Menstruation in the development sector

Within the UN development agenda, menstrual hygiene management (not called menstruation) has come to be seen as an important human rights issue and part of women’s rights discourse (OHCHR 2014). While mainly addressed within the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector, discussions around menstruation have mainly focused on the Global South and suggest an emphasis on medicalised understandings of menstruation, stressing the importance of hygiene.

UN agencies (UNICEF 2006, UNESCO 2014), various scholars (Sommer 2010, Wilson et al. 2012), INGOs (e.g. SIMAVI and Wash United), and civil society actors and groups (such as Rubycup, LenaCup and BeGirl that promote sustainable menstrual products) contend that there is a causal relation between menstruation and girls’ school dropout rates in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia due to the lack of menstrual products and the lack of water and sanitation facilities (e.g. separate toilets for boys and girls, toilets with doors, or sanitary bins). However, to date little empirical research concretely substantiates the proposed link between the two factors, and criticisms to this assumption have begun to emerge (e.g. Crofts and Fisher 2012, Birdthistle et al. 2011).

Flyer
Menstrual hygiene management campaign focusing on Afghanistan “Poor sanitation equals poor education”. Flyer collected at De Haagse Hogeschool, Den Haag.

Following the example of INGOs and other development-related organisations, some governments have started to place attention to the subject, leading to the approval of national policies and regulations emphasising the importance of providing products to manage menstruation. A clear example is Kenya, where the government since 2017 is legally obliged to provide free menstrual products to schoolgirls.

Burgeoning menstrual activism

Menstrual activism, a growing and very heterogeneous movement whose practices and narratives either conflates or fully opposes those in the development sector, is also helping to place menstruation on the public agenda. In general terms, the movement has focused on valuing women’s bodies, as well as questioning and fighting the stigma associated with menstruation.

But at the same time this movement speaks of the importance of body literacy: knowing about the functioning of our own bodies. Multiple examples of menstrual education initiatives can be found across the globe which mobilise alternative understandings to the biomedical discourses about menstruation. These initiatives are found on online platforms, in theatre plays, comic books, fanzines, YouTube videos, and also in ‘hands-on’ workshops on sexuality.

The movement has also focused on campaigning against menstrual shaming or against the imposition of taxes on menstrual products, and on the innovation and redesign of reusable menstrual products. As an evolving movement, there are also increasing efforts to achieve more structural changes at the level of influencing policy and legal changes needed to address the multiple issues of menstruation and to move beyond the provision of products as the one and only way in which to address a very complex subject.

The need for more empirical research

Popular statements that cannot be traced to any empirical study, such as that “African girls[1] do not attend school during their menstruation”, have become a sort of universalised truth. Over the last three years, for my PhD research I have interviewed a number of different actors based on different continents and directly involved in topics of menstruation. Interestingly, the statement resonated with many of them and was considered an urgent matter needing attention despite the lack of empirical evidence.

In Argentina for example, some menstrual activists talk about this issue and even reflect on possible strategies to provide a solution. The statement is replicated even on websites of multinational corporations (e.g. Procter & Gamble[2] 2007). More specifically, a Google search of this term yielded 807 unique results—a number that indicates how easily this broad yet scientifically unsubstantiated claim has traveled around the world, to the point of acquiring the status of a fact.

stencil.jpg
Menstrual activism through a menstrual cup stencil in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Photo: Jacqueline Gaybor

Menstruation: An ISS research topic

The ISS has been home to several studies on the topic of menstruation. Over the past year, both Kenyan and Colombian Masters students have written thought-provoking research papers on the topic. The first paper focused on menstrual experiences of adolescent girls in Kibera, the biggest slum in Kenya, and the second on menstrual cultures in Barcelona.

As part of the 2016 ISS Development Research Seminar (DRS) series, the ISS hosted a session titled ‘Technologies for Civic Innovation’, where menstrual activists from Argentina and a representative of Dutch INGO SIMAVI were invited to engage in dialogue. Since 2015, for my PhD research I have been reflecting on the aforementioned global dynamics and their relations with menstrual activism in Argentina, where the menstrual movement has gained a lot of strength in the last decade.

Conclusion

Some time ago I read an article by Ole Redkal, in which he speaks about the discussion around the myth of the spinach as a good source of iron. Redkal (2014) describes ‘the decimal point mistake’ discussion and how it misled millions in and outside academia into believing that there is no high composition of iron in this edible plant. He questions how this statement was born in academia and how it became an urban legend.

What roles do scholars and development agencies play in the ‘making of realities’? The call to make menstruation a topic on the public agenda is out, which signifies an advance toward change, but also implies big challenges. The ways in which this call is put to action invites us to think out of the box, questioning our own assumptions and debating and advancing research in new directions.

[1] In using this statement, no reference is ever made to a specific geographical area inside the African continent, showing the lack of sensitivity to how the understanding and management of menstruation varies depending on socio-cultural context, class, age or ethnicity.
[2] Based on the ‘missing school’ argument, Procter & Gamble has developed the project ‘Protecting Futures’ which consists of providing access to menstrual products and building sanitation facilities.

References

Birdthistle, I., K. Dickson, M. Freeman and L. Javidi (2011) ‘What impact does the provision of separate toilets for girls at schools have on their primary and secondary school enrolment, attendance and completion?: A systematic review of the evidence’. London: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute of Education.

Crofts, T. and J. Fisher (2012) ‘Menstrual hygiene in Ugandan schools: an investigation of low-cost sanitary pads,’ Journal of Water Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, 2(1), 50-58.

OHCHR (2014) ‘Every woman’s right to water, sanitation and hygiene.’ Retrieved from United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Comissioner: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Everywomansrighttowatersanitationandhygiene.aspx

Procter & Gamble (2007) ‘Tampax and Always Launch Protecting Futures Program Dedicated to Helping African Girls Stay in School.’ Retrieved from: http://news.pg.com/press-release/pg-corporate-announcements/tampax-and-always-launch-protecting-futures-program-dedicat

Rekdal, O. B. (2014) ‘Academic urban legends,’ Social Studies of Science, 44(4), 638-654.

Sommer, M. (2010) ‘Where the education system and women’s bodies collide: The social and health impact of girls’ experiences of menstruation and schooling in Tanzania,’ Journal of Adolescence, 33(4), 521-529.

UNESCO (2014) ‘Puberty Education & Menstrual Hygiene Management. Good Policy and Practice in Health Education.’

UNICEF. (2006) ‘Progress for Children: A Report Card on Water and Sanitation.’

Wilson, E., J. Reeve, A. Pitt, B. Sully and S. Julious (2012) ‘INSPIRES: Investigating a reusable sanitary pad intervention in a rural educational setting.’ School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR). University of Sheffield.

Bio_JGJacqueline Gaybor is an environmental justice lawyer. She holds a Master in Development Studies from the ISS. In her Ph.D. research project she explores the relationships of technological and social innovations in the construction of a sustainable menstrual management in Argentina.