No country in the African Continent (including Arab states) has more than 2 inscription in the last 10 years!

Burkina Faso 2017?, 2009
Chad 2018?, 2016, 2012
Senegal 2012, 2011
South Africa 2018?, 2017?
Sudan 2016, 2011

2017 is an important year for re-emerging activity by 4 African nations.
Angola 2017
Benin 2017
Eritrea 2017
Ghana 2017

Referred Nominations (any news here?)
THE THIMLICH OHINGA CULTURAL LANDSCAPE (Kenya) 2015
THE BAROTSE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE (Zambia) 2014

Ethiopia (potential nomination for 2018?)
Dirre Sheik Hussein Religious, Cultural and Historical Site]Dirre Sheik Hussein Religious, Cultural and Historical Site (March 2016)

The reason why so many sites are in developed countries, and so few in lesser developed countries, is the amount of money and time which is required for a nomination. In my travels, I've been able to speak with several people who have spearheaded world heritage nominations for various sites. The cost runs from many hundreds of thousands of dollars into the millions.

The fact is, there are many places around the world which are so obviously worthy of inscription that they should be able to be brought up for a vote with little in the way of a dossier.

They either need to reduce the requirements for a nomination, or they should require countries with a significant number of sites (> 10) to sponsor one in a developing country for every future nomination from their own country.

Also bear in mind that operating a site itself is costly (operations).

Now playing a bit devil's advocate (still agreeing it's too little):
* I am not sure Africa has all that much to submit when it comes to 19th and 20th century architecture, industrialization, scientific progress, ... This reduces the scope of sites significantly.
* The Sahara is a pretty huge chunk of the place. Only so much desert sites you can submit.
* Nature sites require conservation and protection. I don't see Unesco should be lenient on this.

We only had a few of them in our Top 50 missing:
- Laas Geel (Somalia)
- Sumbrungu Painted Houses (Ghana)
- Benin Iya (Benin)
- Peaks of Sindou (Burkina Faso)

Maybe we can think of more that would for sure be worthwhile additions. I think it's both a case of unfamiliarity on our side with "what's on offer" and lack of existing heritage management structures in the nominating countries (combined with money of course).

I am not an African expert by any measure, but these civilizations have few WHS. I feel confident that there could be about 25-30 WHS amongst these kingdoms alone, no?

Egyptian Civilization 3 WHS
Kush Civilization 2 WHS
Kingdom of Aksum 1 WHS
Mali Empire 2 WHS
Songhai Empire 1 WHS
Ghana Empire 0 WHS
Zimbabwe Kingdom 1 WHS

Soleb Temple (Sudan)

Soleb Temple by Antonio, on Flickr

Larabanga Mosque (Ghana)

Larabanga mosque by Adrian Shepherd, on Flickr

El-Kurru is already inscribed as part of Jebel Barkal

This report of a meeting in Nov 2015 (supported by UNESCO) to discuss an update of sudan's T List (last entry 2004) might be of interest -it comes up with 23 potential sites (including the 5 already on)
http://en.unesco.org/news/sudanese-world-heritage-tentative-list-launching-workshop-r eview

This report of the meeting is dated Jan 2016 and reports a decision to put forward 18 which, at first sight, includes the existing 5 - so it ought to be possible to identify those rejected at the meeting (I haven't yet done so) !!!!!
http://en.unesco.org/news/sudanese-world-heritage-tentative-list-validation-workshop- review

Thanks this is a great resource for future nominations that might emerge.

Following yesterday's exchange on the Forum regarding the nomination of the Barberton Tablelands as a Natural site for their geology I was considering the range of South Africa's current T List on the basis that one might expect RSA to be ahead of most other African countries in terms of getting its UNESCO "act" together! This reminded me of the recent removal of a mining heritage related site not far from Barberton - Pilgrims Rest (we have visited both).
In searching on this I discovered the following link which discusses the sudden REMOVAL of SIX sites from RSA's T List in 2015. The discussion as to why this happened might be of interest. The lack of clear explanation perhaps typifies RSA's governmental culture and some concerns about such matters as land ownership are raised but the general conclusion is that it had been thought better to concentrate on fewer sites and actually protect them and bring them to nomination! When one considers the glacial pace of nomination from some other African (and some Asian) T Lists this might indeed be a good strategy!
http://theheritageportal.co.za/article/sa-removes-sites-unesco-world-heritage-tentati ve-list

I do not think Larabanga mosque will find its own way to Unesco List, although it is a part of T List: Trade Pilgrimage Routes of North-Western Ghana; Larabanga village is the main entry point to Mole National Park, it will probably be in the buffer zone of the park, if inscribed...
In my opinion, built of mud brikcs Navrongo Catholic Cathedral has the biggest potential and "values" of all candidates from Ghana TL.

Egypt is not part of Africa, according to UNESCO.

South Africa has also been going through my mind, as that is the African country that I visited most recently. Apart from the T-List which isn't too inspiring, I was thinking of:
- The country's mining industry could produce a valuable addition, something about diamond mining or mining history.
- Boer War sites are important for South African history, but which site could represent all sides of the conflict and not divide?
- Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is very highly rated among mammalwatchers / safari tourists (even a Peace Park and transboundary)
- Pretoria (rather unique mix of architectural styles)

The country does have a large issue with conservation and management, so every nomination would be kind of a struggle.

I have just realised that the link I provided above re S Africa's removal of sites from its T List was incorrect (I re-pasted an earlier cut and paste about Sudan!!) - I have corrected it now.
If you read the article you will see that it did include "Africa's first gold industrial plant and arguably the best preserved Central Reduction Works in the world, early industrial scale diamond mining operations (which indelibly altered much of Central, Eastern and Southern Africa as a result of a voracious labour system), "
http://theheritageportal.co.za/article/sa-removes-sites-unesco-world-heritage-tentati ve-list

Yes -a very fine park!
May I share a photo of our best EVER viewing of lions which occurred whilst we were in Kgalagadi (known as "Kalahari Gemsbok" back in 1998)!! It was from pre-digital era so it has been scanned in from a diapositive : lion photo

Very interesting article indeed. I'll link it from the country page. A number of the removed sites sound so interesting, just the material that could make a good nomination story (except for the conservation of course). Pilgrim's Rest, Kimberley, Prince Edward Islands.


You may but the link doesn't work for me!

P.S.: link corrected above