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 "transnational 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.