The Cultural Heritage Finance Alliance (CHiFA) announced the launch of the first global Accelerator devoted to urban heritage regeneration. Five cities have been competitively selected to work together towards leveraging urban heritage assets for diverse investment and sustainable development: Baeza, Spain; Cuenca, Ecuador; Lamu, Kenya; Luxembourg; and Tunis, Tunisia.
Bonnie Burnham, President of CHiFA, said: “Heritage preservation has traditionally been dependent on public funding and initiative. Competition for public funding in our increasingly dynamic and resource-constrained world has left many cities and countries without the funding they need to protect and revitalize precious cultural resources. The Accelerator defines a new path forward premised on the collaborative initiatives of local governments, the private sector, community residents, and philanthropy to leverage resources for sustained impact. Every sector of society can play a role.”
The Accelerator is organized in cooperation with the Organization of World Heritage Cities (OWHC). The Accelerator is a featured activity of the OWHC New Urban Project, a set of proposals for designing and implementing heritage-led local strategies to regenerate the habitability of historic centers. Mikhaël de Thyse, Secretary-General of the OWHC, stated: “Confronted with a combination of threats and pressures increased by the effects of climate change, World Heritage Cities shall envisage other ways and strategies for adapting themselves to our changing world. OWHC is committed to proposing operational solutions for regenerating the habitability in historic centers. The goal of our New Urban Project is to help advance our member cities toward a shared sustainability standard, and to recognize their accomplishments.”
During the nine-month Accelerator program, the participating cities will address four themes responding to the OWHC’s strategic axes, augmented by CHiFA’s broader lens of action: Housing & Livability, Ecology & Sustainability, Mobility, and Economic & Social Development. The program will fast-track plans and implementation strategies to unlock the value of each city’s unique cultural assets to achieve sustainable economic and community development. Each city will develop a strategic plan and a pilot project that together define a mandate for broad cooperation between governmental agencies, local communities, non-governmental institutions, and private participants and investors. Findings and outcomes experienced through the Accelerator will nurture the elaboration of the New Urban Project, which will be presented to the OWHC during the 18th World Congress to be held in Marrakech in autumn 2026.
At the culmination of the program, CHiFA will present the portfolio of projects for critique, discussion, and potential financial participation.
The Accelerator team is led by CHiFA’s founders Bonnie Burnham, former president of World Monuments Fund; Gary Hattem, former managing director and head of Global Social Finance at Deutsche Bank; Derek A.R. Moore, principal at Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLC; and Keith Wright, a strategic advisor and mentor in the financial services sector. They are joined by two additional mentors: Eduardo Rojas, an urban development specialist formerly at the Inter-American Development Bank, and Guido Licciardi, senior operations officer at the World Bank. The program manager is Amy Iwasaki.
The Cultural Heritage Finance Alliance is a non-profit organization based in New York City whose mission is to promote heritage-led regeneration through collaborative and innovative financing solutions. CHiFA aims to build a global marketplace and a supportive ecosystem of expertise and civic interests premised on opportunities for capital investment in historic places.
The OWHC, headquartered in Quebec City, Canada, is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization, as well as a network of mayors, elected representatives, and heritage experts. The collective intelligence, both political and professional, is put to work to make historic cities livable, cohesive, inclusive, and resilient.
For further information contact: info@heritagefinance.org
