The 5th Annual Coordination Meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage related Category 2 Institutes and Centres took place in Dehradun, India on 22 November, 2016. The UNESCO Category 2 Centre (C2C) on Natural World Heritage Management and Training for Asia and the Pacific Region (NWHMT) at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) hosted the meeting in its campus. Four Coordination Meetings have taken place so far in 2010 (Manama, Bahrain), 2012 (Milan, Italy), 2013 (Oslo, Norway) and 2014 (Shanghai, China). The objective of this meeting was to build institutional capacity through a focus on international cooperation and to build synergies for effective natural heritage conservation.

19 representatives from the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Advisory Bodies, Regional Institutes and Universities, UNESCO Chairs and four Category 2 Centres participated in the meeting. Dr. V.B. Mathur, Director UNESCO C2C at WII welcomed the participants and briefed about the purpose of the 5^th Annual Coordination Meeting and also gave an overview of mandate and activities of the newly established C2C at WII. In her inaugural address, Dr. Mechtild Rossler, Director World Heritage Centre, Paris highlighted the role of World Heritage Category 2 Centres in complementing the work of UNESCO. The meeting was organized in three technical sessions in which review of actions taken from previous C2C coordination meetings; progress and activities of each Category 2 Centre and Institutes and road map for enhancing collaborations and cooperation amongst C2Cs was discussed. 

The UNESCO C2C at WII Monsoon bulletin was also launched  during this meeting and is available on the following website link http://www.wii.gov.in/UNESCO_C2C_Monsoon_Bulletin_2016.

The 5^th Annual Coordination Meeting was followed by two Consultative Dialogues on “Kailash Sacred Landscape” and “Cultural Landscapes, Mixed and Transboundary Heritage Sites” on 23^rd November and 24^th -25^thNovember, 2016 respectively in which over 100 representatives from UNESCO, IUCN, ICOMOS, INTACH and State Forest Departments, Universities participated.