Activities >> Seminars

4th Directors Seminar
Benin 2002

Place: Porto Novo, Benin
Dates: 18– 22 November
Partner: Ecole du Patrimoine Africain (EPA), La Direction du Patrimoine Culturel du Bénin (DPC)

Seminar Objectives: The main objectives of the Directors Seminars were to:

• allow course participants to present various aspects of the 4th Regional Course to the Directors;
• review Africa 2009 programme for the next three years (2003-2005);
• elect two new members of the Coordination Committee.
  

Structure: The AFRICA 2009 programme was first presented to Directors as well as the basic structure of the course. Presentations were also made on the Swedish National Heritage Board and the Riksantikvaren.
The course participants then presented to their directors, a synthesis of the themes discussed during the past 3 months. The Directors followed with a visit to the two sites used for the management planning exercise, the Jardin des Plantes et de la Nature and the Palais Adja-ho dÁkron.
The participants o then presented the results of the management planning exercise. This was followed by discussions by the Directors on the course and its content. The coordinators of AFRICA 2009 then presented the programme and its activities in more detail for discussion with a view to mapping out future directions.
The third and the fourth days of the seminar were devoted to Directors’ individual presentations and discussions on the themes that should be given priority within the programme.
The 5 topics deemed most important by the Directors were legal and institutional frameworks, awareness and promotion, inventory and documentation, training and exchange, and traditional architecture. Groups were then formed to discuss some of these concepts more in detail. At the conclusion of the seminar, Recommendations were adopted by the Directors (see Annex Two) and certificates were presented to course participants.
On the closing day of the seminar, the Director General of UNESCO, Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, briefly visited the seminar during his tour of EPA. After the DG made a brief speech, one of the directors, Mr. Oumarou Nao of Burkina Faso made a short intervention on behalf of his fellow directors.

Results:

• 16 Directors attended the seminar.
• Representatives of the financial partners of the programme, the Swedish National Heritage Board, and the Riksantikvaren of Norway attended in addition to one observer from the Getty Conservation Institute.
• 18 course participants attended.
• Directors were able to understand the work that the participants had done during the course so that newly acquired capacities could be better used after the course.
• 5 priority needs were agreed upon by Directors for attention by the programme in the coming 3 years.
• A final set of recommendations were adopted by the Directors.
• Oumarou Nao of Burkina Faso and Raymond Asombang was elected to the AFRICA 2009 Coordination Committee.
• 12 articles were written in the local press about the seminar.
  

For more information on the seminar, see the final report (Pdf 819 KB).