© UNESCO
Video Fighting illicit traffic

The UNESCO Office in Venice will organize an international expert meeting with the Macedonian Ministry of Culture, with the support of the Macedonian National Commission for UNESCO, on “Awareness-raising, communication and outreach strategies: fighting the illicit traffic of cultural property in South-East Europe”. Elizabeta Kanceska – Milevska, Macedonian Minister of Culture, will open the meeting. This meeting in Skopje will serve to look at ways to ensure the dissemination to the wider public (heritage sites, tourism offices, customs, airports, media, televisions, social networks, etc) of general messages on the fight against the illicit traffic of cultural property.

It will bring together, around the Macedonian case, key national players affected by the implementation of the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, international experts and especially representatives involved in communication and outreach policies and strategies.

The meeting will also serve to present the Macedonian version of a 15 minutes video on awareness-raising to the fight against the illicit traffic of cultural property in South-East Europe, realized in May 2011 by the UNESCO Office, in close cooperation with all Ministries of Culture and National Commissions of South-East Europe. Thanks to the generous support of Austria, the video was translated in all national languages of the concerned countries.

A second meeting on awareness-raising measures is foreseen to be organized in Tirana, Albania, in November 2011.