World Monuments Fund and the Yangon Heritage Trust hosted an international forum on the sustainable development of Yangon, Myanmar, from January 15 to 17, 2015. Located at the historic Strand Hotel in downtown Yangon, the forum was held in response to the recent political and economic changes in the country and how they are impacting the historic fabric of the former capital. Yangon was included on the 2014 World Monuments Watch to call attention to these issues, and participants gathered from around the world to lend expertise as local stakeholders grapple with a rapidly changing urban context. Speakers included the U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar Derek Mitchell; former mayor of Rome Francesco Rutelli; H.E. U Hla Myint, Mayor of Yangon; and U Soe Thane, Minister of the President's Office of Myanmar. Among many positive results from the conference was a government commitment to approving the recommended zoning plan and conservation area.

The Ralph E. Ogden Foundation has approved $170,000 in support of three WMF conservation projects: two sites in South America on the 2014 World Monuments Watch and one site in the Caribbean. 

The Remigio Crespo Toral Museum in Cuenca, Ecuador, was the residence of the renowned twentieth-century poet Remigio Crespo Toral and became the City Museum in 1967. Floods threaten the structure and the collections. A $40,000 award will restore an exhibit room near the front entrance as a pilot project for future restoration work.

Georgetown City Hall, resembling a small Gothic Revival castle in the heart of Guyana's capital, received $50,000 to fund an international technical team to work with local professional counterparts in the development of a conservation and management plan for the structure. The local government has pledged close to $1 million for major rehabilitation works on the building.

The town of Jacmel in Haiti received an $80,000 award to help implement, document, and promote a pilot demonstration project in a historic "gingerbread house" and develop a specialized preservation training curriculum and didactic materials for the AECID-Escuela Taller crafts trainees. 

For years, Palestinian villagers and neighboring Israeli residents collaborated with the environment organization EcoPeace Middle East to advocate for the protection of the village and millennia-old cultural landscape of Battir from the Israel Defense Forces' planned separation barrier that would cut through the ancient site. Battir was included on the 2014 World Monuments Watch as part of this awareness-raising effort. Finally, on January 4, 2015, the Israeli High Court of Justice froze the plans for the construction of the separation barrier. The Battir cultural landscape was nominated to the World Heritage List in June 2014.  

The religious complex of Santa Paula in Seville was established in 1473 by Ana de Santillana for the Jerónimas Sisters and it is still in use as a convent. In 2014 the Annenberg Foundation provided a grant of more than $200,000 to WMF for the restoration of the deteriorating main portal of the church, an interesting mix of Gothic, Mudéjar, and Renaissance styles by Pedro Millan and Niculoso Pisano and dating to 1504. The project will start this year and will be implemented by the Instituto Andaluz de Patrimonio Histórico IAPH. 

During the last six months, the armed conflict in Syria has led to a multifaceted response by international institutions in favor of Syrian cultural heritage in the middle of the ongoing humanitarian disaster. Since August 2014, weekly reports by the Syrian Heritage Initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the American Schools of Oriental Research have detailed threats, conditions, and future restoration needs of Syrian cultural heritage sites. In December 2014, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research released an assessment of damage to heritage sites based on satellite images, indicating that 290 Syrian cultural heritage sites have been damaged or destroyed. Throughout 2014, Syria's Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums also issued several reports on the condition of heritage places.