Professor Sophia Labadi, Professor of Cultural Heritage in the Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies, led discussions on a Policy Guidance on Cultural Heritage for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), a project by ICOMOS (the International Council on Monuments and Sites), the largest NGO on heritage.

The role of culture and heritage’s contributions to all the SDGs need improvements in communication, alignment, coordination and advocacy with the broader sustainable development field, and the Policy Guidance aims to fill this gap by detailing how heritage can fulfil the SDGs. This meeting took place during ICOMOS Advisory Committee and General Assembly, held in Marrakesh, Morocco on 19 October and was attended by experts from all over the world. At this meeting, Professor Labadi presented an example of what the policy could look like and collected comments to develop further the document.

Professor Labadi stresses that “this endeavour is necessary to ensure that heritage can occupy a more prominent space in the international debate on sustainable development”.