We gather today to mark two milestones that belong not only to an institution, but to a continent. The 10th African World Heritage Day and the 20th anniversary of the African World Heritage Fund – twenty years of investing in something that cannot be replaced, cannot be replicated, and cannot be recovered once lost.
Opening Remarks by the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Republic of South Africa
On the Occasion of the 10th African World Heritage Day and the 20th Anniversary of the African World Heritage Fund
Development Bank of Southern Africa, Midrand, Johannesburg | 5 May 2026
His Excellency, the Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa,
Honourable Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Excellencies, Ambassadors and High Commissioners,
Distinguished representatives of UNESCO and the African Union,
Leadership of the African World Heritage Fund,
Esteemed partners, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning.
There is a small object, no larger than the palm of a hand, that sits in a museum in Pretoria. It is a rhinoceros. It was made nearly eight hundred years ago by craftsmen of the Mapungubwe kingdom, from thin sheets of gold worked over a wooden core. Whoever shaped it did so with such confidence in its proportions, such judgement in its line, that we still recognise its skill seven centuries later.
We do not know their name.
And for most of the last hundred years, the civilisation that produced that object was largely absent from the story Africa told about itself. Not because the evidence was missing but because the framework that valued it was missing. The centre of gravity of African heritage sat somewhere else, decided by someone else, on terms set by someone else.
That is the work the African World Heritage Fund was created to undo.
We gather today to mark two milestones that belong not only to an institution, but to a continent. The 10th African World Heritage Day and the 20th anniversary of the African World Heritage Fund – twenty years of investing in something that cannot be replaced, cannot be replicated, and cannot be recovered once lost.
In the life of a fund, twenty years is an important moment. In the life of a continent that has too often watched its own story told by others, its own treasures catalogued by outsiders, and its own heritage valued on terms it did not set – twenty years of building something from the inside is a genuine achievement.
When the AWHF was established in 2006, through the shared vision of the African Union and UNESCO, it was an act of conviction that Africa must tell its own story, that Africa must safeguard its own legacy, and that Africa must build its own capacity to stand confidently within the framework of the 1972 World Heritage Convention.
That conviction has been vindicated – written not in reports and statistics alone, but in landscapes restored, in sites protected, in communities empowered, and in voices now heard where once they were absent. A new generation of heritage managers, archaeologists, conservators, rangers and community custodians carry forward not only knowledge, but responsibility. They are the living proof of what this Fund was always meant to produce.
What this Fund has done, slowly and deliberately over twenty years, is move that centre of gravity home.
Excellencies,
As the host country of the AWHF, and as the government department that carries this partnership on South Africa’s behalf, we do not take this responsibility lightly. We are grateful to the Development Bank of Southern Africa for providing a home worthy of this occasion, and to the leadership of the AWHF for the dedication they bring to this work every day.
We see our role not merely as host, but as champion for a continental vision of heritage that is inclusive, developmental, and people-centred. South Africa has been shaped by its own encounters with heritage: what it means to lose it, what it costs to reclaim it, and what it offers when it is finally allowed to speak freely. That experience informs how we approach this stewardship.
Our own World Heritage Sites – from the Cradle of Humankind to Robben Island, from Mapungubwe to the uKhahlamba Drakensberg – are not simply national assets. They are contributions to a shared human story. And what perhaps surprises every visitor to these places is how quiet they are. Mapungubwe is quiet. Robben Island, after the boat has left, is quiet. The Cradle is quiet. There is something in that quietness that asks more of you than any monument or plaque ever could. It asks you to listen for what was here before you, and what will be here after you.
Heritage, on this continent, is not just what we have inherited. It is what we have refused to lose. The poet Don Mattera, writing of the destruction of Sophiatown, gave his memoir the title “Memory Is the Weapon”. That, in the end, is what we are gathered here to defend – a memory that has had to survive being told it did not exist.
This occasion also marks the opening of Africa Month – a time when we reaffirm our unity, our shared history, and our collective future as envisioned in Agenda 2063. Heritage is not incidental to that vision. It is foundational to it. You cannot build a confident, cohesive, forward-looking Africa on a foundation it does not understand or value.
And that brings me to the point I want to leave with you before His Excellency the Deputy President takes the floor.
Heritage, ultimately, is not protected by policies alone. It is not protected by conventions or inscription lists, important as these are. It is protected by the people who live alongside it, care for it daily, and believe in its value – not because an institution told them to, but because they have felt it in their own lives. Communities are not merely beneficiaries of conservation. They are its custodians. They are its conscience. And any model of heritage protection that does not place them at its centre is, in the end, incomplete.
The AWHF has understood this. Its twenty years matter, because it chose the right centre of gravity.
Ladies and gentlemen,
This anniversary is a moment of celebration. It is a moment of recommitment to partnership, to community, and to the enduring conviction that Africa’s story is worth telling, worth protecting, and worth investing in.
May the next twenty years find that centre, and hold it.
It is now my honour to invite a leader whose commitment to that story needs no introduction – His Excellency, the Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa – to deliver the Keynote Address.
Your Excellency, the floor is yours. We are honoured by your presence.
