European heritage – Sustainable development strategies in South-East Europe

The Institutional Capacity Building Plan is the first of three components in the Regional Programme for Cultural and Natural Heritage in South East Europe that was launched in 2003. As part of this plan, a "translational theme-based debate" was held, the structure of which was based on an assessment of requests from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" and Kosovo. The results of this debate have been published across three volumes in the European Heritage series. The first volume concerned current heritage policies and legislation; the second covered the tools for integrated management of cultural and natural heritage, in the broad sense of the term (the concept of "cultural environment"). This third volume examines how the enhancement of cultural and natural heritage can contribute to the implementation of sustainable development projects. The participants' reports and presentations on European best practices should inspire institutions to define rules and guidelines for structuring their national heritage policies so that they can also contribute to regional and local development strategies.