ABSTRACT
This chapter helps to learn from past and present experiences of managing heritage both in Africa and in the diaspora to gestate contextually relevant solutions that benefit local communities. The outcome is that in West Africa and Ethiopia, communities live with their heritage making their involvement a natural process of heritage management. Thus for African heritage to be sustainably utilised and managed, communities in their multiple forms must be placed at the centre of heritage management initiatives. Thus African heritage managers must recognise that for society to appreciate the potential of cultural heritage management in its contribution to socio-economic development we have to develop better perceptions of heritage places among professionals, decision makers and local communities. In most of southern Africa heritage places are supposed to be managed as special protected areas to the extent that some are managed as national parks where communities are regarded as a threat to their protection.
