Underfunding of heritage

The National Heritage Council (NHC) has, in the five years of its existence, observed disturbing challenges about the lack of resources to protect and preserve heritage treasures. A Heritage Funding Summit will be held on 9 and 10 July 2009 at the Gallagher Estates in Midrand, Gauteng to comment on the impact study that was commissioned by the NHC to assess the contribution made by the private and public sector for the past 15 years.

The preliminary results of the Funding Impact Study will be made public for the first time at the Summit. This study will assist the NHC to recommend to government to make interventions in the sector should the study confirm the apparent disparities. The NHC is concerned that heritage in South Africa is amongst the sectors that receives the least investments of resources, unlike in other countries that the study is using as benchmarks. On the other hand, the potential economic value of heritage appears to be underutilised.

The summit will be attended by over 350 funding institutions from the private and public sector. Heritage practitioners and communities will be part of the summit. The NHC will recommend new approaches to coordinate heritage funding. Some of the disturbing observations of by the NHC are that:

1. the 'double dipping' by the same people or projects decreases the spread of resources,

2. the lack of coordination towards funding authentic heritage projects that are aligned with the priorities of the sector,

3. the tight access to funds offered by institutions because of the terms and conditions set by these institutions, and

4. the skewed focus on demographics including urban versus rural, tangible vs in tangible heritage.

Another observation made during the research is that, some larger, multi-sector funding organizations make no distinction between heritage funding and any other funding not related to heritage. Some funding reaching heritage projects is not a deliberate intention of funders to preserve the country's heritage.

This particularly becomes a worrying factor suggesting that South Africa is not working together to preserve its heritage and leave a legacy for future generations.

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