Some important points to be considered:

1) Technical

• The conference and the preparations need to be financed by the organizers who should seek private sector and government funding. The financial statement should be clear and based on feasible plans.
• The conference has to be organized by an efficient and experienced team, including communication, tourism, administration, geopark specialists and geoscientists.
• Global Geopark Network members should actively participate and provide their expertise and experience. The conference actually is the most important event for the members to meet and exchange.
• The venue of the meeting should be adequate and easily accessible for international participants. - UNESCO for the moment is only able to provide intellectual sponsorship.

2) Organization

• The past conferences in Beijing 2004 and Belfast 2006 had strong governmental and ministerial support and high media coverage. The organization team is advised to include governmental entities as well as a broad spectrum of other groups like Tourism Boards, Councils of towns, counties, Geological Survey, etc.
• It is of great technical and organizational advantage if the country where the conference is proposed to be held is actively involved in the Global Geoparks and has already member(s) in the Network.

3) Content

• Conference themes have to be closely related to: geological heritage, Geoparks, Geotourism, management, etc.
• Each organizer will certainly put the focus on specific themes which are not preliminarily fixed by UNESCO and will be discussed during the preparation phase in more detail.

The above list is not exhaustive and aims only to provide some first guidance.

Please ensure that your full bid is submitted by 31 March 2008 to:

Global Geoparks Secretariat
Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences
UNESCO
1, rue Miollis
75732 PARIS Cedex 15
France

Contact: Margarete Patzak