Every year on 5 May, African World Heritage Day is celebrated to highlight the richness, diversity, and global significance of Africa’s cultural and natural heritage. Established by UNESCO in 2015, the day aims to raise awareness of the continent’s heritage, promote its preservation, and address the challenges many heritage sites face, including underrepresentation on the World Heritage List, environmental threats, and limited resources.
While the day has a strong global and heritage-focused dimension, it also carries important relevance for cities, particularly in the context of anti-racism and social cohesion.
From Global Heritage to Local Responsibility
African World Heritage Day is often marked through exhibitions, educational programmes, public discussions, and cultural events that showcase African history, knowledge systems, and artistic expression. However, beyond these formats, the day offers an important opportunity for cities to reflect on how Africa, Africans and people of African descent are represented, or often misrepresented, in public narratives.
Across Europe, dominant images of Africa frequently remain shaped by deficit-oriented perspectives, focusing on crisis, poverty, or conflict. These narratives not only obscure the diversity and richness of African societies, but also influence how people of African descent are perceived and treated in everyday life.
Cities, as spaces where diversity is lived and negotiated daily, are uniquely positioned to further counter-narratives and challenge existing ones.
A Tool for Local Anti-Racism Practice
For ECCAR member cities, African World Heritage Day can serve as a practical entry point for local action against racism. It can provide a framework to:
- Challenge stereotypical representations by highlighting African histories, cultures, and contributions beyond reductive narratives
- Create space for civil society to define and present African heritage on its own terms
- Strengthen visibility and recognition of Black communities, professionals, artists, and knowledge holders
- Promote inclusive storytelling in public institutions such as museums, schools, and cultural programmes
Moving Beyond Deficit Perspectives
Recognising African heritage is not only about celebrating the past. It is about reshaping present-day understandings and creating more inclusive futures.
By actively engaging with African World Heritage Day, cities can contribute to moving beyond deficit-based views of people of African descent and instead promote narratives centred on knowledge, creativity, resilience, and agency.
This shift is essential for building more inclusive urban environments in which all residents are recognised not only through the challenges they face, but through the contributions they make.
