Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis, September 22, 2025 (UNESCO National Commission) – On September 19, 2025, St. Kitts and Nevis delegates made a strong case for increased UNESCO technical assistance and financing to preserve the valuable and rich cultural heritage across the Caribbean, including in the Federation.
The Federation’s delegates were attending a virtual consultation session hosted by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Paris and the UNESCO Caribbean regional office in Jamaica, on the development of a dedicated strategy and prioritization framework for SIDS within the context of the World Heritage Convention. In its opening remarks, St. Kitts and Nevis noted that, whilst recognizing the critical global concerns linked to preserving cultural heritage sites, notably challenges arising from climate change and the imperative of sustainable development, conservation developments were held back by a “woeful lack of institutional capacity”.
This critical point was reiterated by many other Caribbean delegates. UNESCO recent poll undertaken across the Caribbean on the key obstacles and challenges, revealed that the two most prominent factors were inadequate investment and financial resources (61%) and limited human resources (40%).
Attended by over 40 delegates from the entire Caribbean region representing individual country’s National Commissions for UNESCO and local world heritage focal contact person, the event covered a wide range of challenges and obstacles facing small islands in identifying, documenting, nominating and preserving local cultural and natural heritage sites.
The St. Kitts and Nevis delegation taking the floor comprised Ambassador David Doyle, special envoy to UNESCO in Paris, Secretary-General of the Federation’s National Commission for UNESCO, H.E. Nerys Dockery and Percival Hanley, the Federation’s UNESCO Focal Contact on World Heritage and General Manager of the Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Ambassador Doyle stated: “Small-island developing states like St. Kitts and Nevis, deploy a small pool of talent in many disciplines, one of the most evident being in the cultural heritage space. There is a limit as to how far we can advance the country’s cultural heritage protection agenda when faced with a paucity of heritage-trained resources at both government and volunteer levels”.
Ambassador Doyle, the main presenter for the national intervention went on to advocate on the following main points:
· Institutional Capacity Limitations: Small islands face significant challenges due to limited technical and administrative capacity, hindering their ability to preserve cultural heritage.
· Mobile Expert Team Proposal: A mobile team of cultural heritage experts should be created to assist Caribbean Ministries of Culture in identifying and nominating eligible sites to the World Heritage List.
· Support for Local Heritage Preservation: UNESCO and well-endowed member states should provide assistance to augment volunteer efforts in preserving local heritage, potentially through a fund to recruit short-term auxiliaries for research and nomination preparation.
· Training Workshops: More frequent regional training workshops should be held to address knowledge gaps on the World Heritage Convention, covering topics such as Outstanding Universal Value criteria and heritage site management.
In her statement to the UNESCO heritage policy-makers and Caribbean delegates, H.E. Nerys Dockery noted: “The St. Kitts and Nevis National Commission for UNESCO welcomes this initiative to develop a dedicated strategy and prioritization framework for Small-island Developing States (SIDS) within the context of the World Heritage Convention, recognizing the unique challenges and opportunities faced by SIDS in preserving our cultural and natural heritage. We look forward to collaborating with UNESCO to address these needs and promote sustainable development in our region.
Mr. Percival Hanley commended the UNESCO World Heritage Centre for its “unwavering technical assistance and support to the Federation, including sanctioning interventions by the UNESCO heritage advisory bodies ICOMOS and IUCN over the past 3 years”.
“The Centre’s timely decision in 2022 to designate St. Kitts and Nevis for special attention under the Upstream Process provided us with advance support in the form of advice, consultation and analysis, in the identification and preparation of potential nomination heritage sites.”
St. Kitts and Nevis was the only Small Island Developing State (SIDS) to benefit from UNESCO’s Upstream Process in early 2023, receiving technical assistance to identify potential new World Heritage sites. Four historic cultural sites were identified as eligible for inclusion on the Tentative List: Bath Stream Cluster in Nevis, Spooner’s Cotton Ginnery and Stone Forth River petroglyphs in St. Kitts, and Charles Fort as an extension of Brimstone Hill Fortress in St. Kitts. St. Kitts and Nevis recently secured a ten-thousand-dollar grant from UNESCO to conduct further research to build robust files on each nomination, with a focus on demonstrating their Outstanding Universal Value.
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