Inclusive governance

• Support integrated planning approaches that bring together cultural, heritage and other policies.

• Involve cultural heritage experts in the bidding, planning and legacy phases.

• Engage local communities but avoid overpromising or minimising their decision-making power.

Cultural mega-events can support integrated policy approaches that bring cultural programs, intangible and tangible heritage, development and other city policies together in one widely shared vision.

• A unified vision for a mega-event that matches heritage issues with other policy goals within a longer-term development process will broaden support for mega-event related interventions.

• Decision-makers should recognise the value and potential contributions of intangible heritage, incorporating it into event planning and local policy.

• Mega-event organizers and urban policymakers should envision how to plan and implement the event in a manner which strengthens local capacity building and public participation practices.

• Plans should provide alternative development scenarios and digital options for a mega-event to respond to socio-economic and political crises, environmental and health emergencies and other disruptive eventualities.

• Newly-created internal networks of various actors that facilitate the implementation of the mega-event in heritage-rich cities should not be disbanded afterwards but rather maintained to preserve the institutional capacity gained.

Cultural heritage experts should be involved in the bidding, planning and legacy phases of a mega-event to promote tangible and intangible heritage. They should assess whether the related goals are met.

• Mega-event organizers and urban policymakers should recognise the knowledge and value that heritage institutions and actors, NGOs and grassroots organisations can bring to mega-event planning. They should seek their contributions at all stages.

• The transition from bidding to planning a mega-event is a crucial moment for cooperation and inclusion of governing authorities and departments at different levels (including heritage policy actors). This can reduce possible conflict and ensure collaboration.

• Mega-events bring many different actors together to cooperate within new governance structures in order to respond to new challenges and rigid deadlines. Such networks can affect heritage decision-making processes during planning and beyond the event. Such structures should become long-term cooperative networks within legacy plans.

• The evaluation of the mega-event should incorporate heritage goals. Organisers should assess the event’s impacts on: heritage assets and their care, heritage awareness, appreciation and participation, skills and abilities of local heritage groups and organisations.

Mobilising local communities in participation processes before, during and after the event is crucial. Mega-event organisers should avoid either overpromising the power given to communities or minimising it.

• Mega-event organisers should avoid uneven approaches that begin with a broad participatory approach that abruptly ends later. They should seek to modulate participation during and even after the mega-event.

• Urban policymakers and mega-event organisers pursuing participatory processes shall involve all social groups, ages and ethnicities with the aim of preventing conflicts and harnessing multiple contributions, including heritage-related ones.

• Mega-event organisers should map community needs and prepare to provide feedback throughout the process to limit conflict when bringing together actors with different operational styles, agendas and interests. This will help build consensus and transparency regarding the planning and implementation phases.