PARIS — The member states of the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) elected Saudi Arabia to be the organization's vice-chairman as a representative of the Arab group in the World Heritage Committee during the committee's 44th session which was held in Fuzhou, China, for the period between 2021-2023. Princess Haifa Bint Abdulaziz Al Muqrin, Saudi Arabia's permanent representative to UNESCO said the election of the Kingdom was the result of its prominent role in supporting heritage and its efforts to document the common human heritage alongside the member states of the committee and to achieve the goals of the organization in general and the goals of the World Heritage Committee in particular. Princess Haifa added that the World Heritage Committee has unanimously adopted a draft resolution submitted by the Kingdom which calls for building the capacities of heritage workers for the next 10 years, as this would contribute to enhancing the geographical diversity of experts, empowering regional competencies, and developing plans and measures to protect endangered cultural heritage sites, in addition to raising the technical and professional competencies of young people and experts in the field of world heritage activities. The committee — composed of representatives of 21 countries elected by the UN General Assembly — is concerned with studying the proposals of countries wishing to inscribe their sites on the World Heritage List, and in assisting experts to submit reports on the sites and provide a final evaluation to resolve the decision to inscribe the proposed sites on the World Heritage List.
