As part of a UNESCO/Japanese Funds-in-Trust project ‘Improving museum documentation and inventories in Sub-Saharan Africa’, which offered a theoretical seminar to museum professionals from 18 African countries in August 2010 at the African Heritage School (EPA) in Porto Novo, Benin, UNESCO organized two pilot field projects: at the National Museum in Togo from 22 to 26 August 2011, and at the National Museum of Arts and Traditions in Gabon from 19 to 23 September 2011. Participating museum professionals in these two workshops applied the lessons they learned in the August 2010 theoretical seminar and led fellow colleagues in practical exercises.

In addition to these two workshops, all of the professionals trained in the 2010 seminar are receiving online distance-learning collaboration with international trainers from UNESCO’s project partners EPA and International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM).

As part of this project, technical assistance is also being offered to select museums, including the National Museum of Civilizations in the Ivory Coast, which was victim to looting and destruction in spring 2011 following the civil unrest linked with the political elections. Other countries benefitting from this project include: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Chad and Togo.

Contact: Karalyn Monteil, Desk officer for Africa and Latin America & the Caribbean, UNESCO Museums Section