ACADEMIC and former University of Zimbabwe lecturer, Webber Ndoro has put the country on the global limelight, after being appointed director-general of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) for the next six years.
BY TINOTENDA MUNYUKWI
At ICCROM’s 30th General Assembly, held in Rome, Italy from November 29 to December 1, Ndoro was ratified as director-general, having been nominated by the organisation’s executive council to take over from Italian, Stefano De Caro. Ndoro’s first involvement with ICCROM was in 1998 when he helped implement one of the first three site projects for the AFRICA 2009 programme and in 2007, he left ICCROM after being appointed African World Heritage Fund (AWHF) executive director.
“Under Ndoro’s leadership, AWHF has planned and implemented programmes and activities for heritage conservation aimed at improving World Heritage nominations, strengthening disaster risk management and traditional management systems, and promoting entrepreneurship related to heritage in the region.
“Ndoro’s accomplishments in the field of heritage conservation have had a lasting impact on ICCROM as an organisation, and on a generation of young heritage professionals in sub-Saharan Africa and worldwide.
“His new assignment will enrich ICCROM’s ties with Africa and with all world regions,” reads a statement from ICCROM.
Ndoro joined the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe in 1985 in which he served as co-coordinator of its Monuments Programme from 1992 to 1994, and then moved to the University of Zimbabwe as lecturer on heritage management.
He joins ICCROM at a time the organisation is trying to come up with productive and sustainable approaches to support the reconstruction of destroyed and damaged historic cities, with Zimbabwe having been a victim of such, when white colonial settlers destroyed the Great Zimbabwe monument in Masvingo under the guise that there was hidden treasure at the monument.
