Sustainable Development Archives - Antigua and Barbuda

Have you heard the news? During the first week of March, the aptly named Cultural Heritage (Protection) Bill (2025) was approved by both houses of Parliament! Antigua and Barbuda, with over 56 forts, 100 prehistoric sites, 250 known shipwrecks, 200 sugar estates, and churches and architectural masterpieces, NOW has comprehensive heritage protection legislation.

Twenty years in the making, the legislation provides for the inventorying and efficient management of our tangible and intangible terrestrial (land) and marine (underwater) cultural heritage resources. This will allow for the safeguarding of our heritage for future generations. It will also advance our economic and sustainable development by creating additional tourism revenue streams, generating jobs, and enriching both our education and heritage sectors.

We recently caught up with the legislation’s longtime champion, renowned archaeologist Dr. Reginald Murphy, who gave us a closer look at the origin, significance, and implementation plan of this important piece of legislation. Please view and/or listen to the interview below:

Interviewee: Dr. Reginald Murphy, CN, MBE, GOH, PhD. Archaeologist, Antigua and Barbuda’s UNESCO National Commission Secretary-General, and a relentless heritage advocate.

Interviewer: Dr. Hazra C. Medica. Cultural Advisor, Ministry of Sports, Culture, and the Creative Industries.

Videographer: Mr. Jeremiah Joseph. Data Entry Clerk, National Archives of Antigua and Barbuda.

Location: The Copper & Lumber Restaurant, Nelson’s Dockyard National Park, English Harbour.

See the full text of the legislation here: The Cultural Heritage Protection Bill.

Antigua and Barbuda is currently hosting the 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

The conference is a grand occasion for SIDS to gather to assess their sustainable development progress. It is also an occasion during which SIDS are meant “to propose a new decade of partnerships and solutions to supercharge their path to resilient prosperity”.

Today, we celebrate being able to publish the two reports from the Department of Culture’s UNESCO IFCD-Sponsored Cultural/Creative Industries Mapping Project. The data collection phase of the project came to an end in the last quarter of 2022, and the reports were delivered in 2023. Their intent and contents are very much in keeping with the spirit of the SIDS conference.

Participants of the UNESCO-sponsored 3-5 February, 2020 Cultural Industries Mapping and Implementation Workshop at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Stadium. The workshop represented the official start of the 2020-2023 project.

Report 1 examines the contribution of the cultural and creative industries to the economy and society of Antigua and Barbuda. Report 2 provides an excellent roadmap/guide for unprecedented propulsion of the Creative Industries and related sustainable national economic development.

We would again like to thank all the creatives and institutions who responded to the project’s surveys. We would also like to thank our local, regional, and international colleagues in sustainable development who provided us with assistance.

To access the summaries and reports, please visit our Repository page or click the individual links below:

Summaries