Activities >> Seminars


Regional Seminar on Documentation and Inventory
Zambia 2000

Background: From 10 - 14 October 2000, the first regional seminar on Documentation and Inventory of Immovable Cultural Heritage was held in Livingstone, Zambia. The topic and site were selected during the 1999 Directors Seminar.

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

• increase participants' awareness of the need for good documentation and inventorying practices as the first step in managing cultural heritage (participants will be asked to become advocates of this cause);
• evaluate and compare the current situation and needs in a number of Sub-Saharan countries through the discussion of country reports presented by seminar participants;
• initiate the development of sound approaches in view of the long-term goal of improving methodologies for inventories that make it easy to share information throughout the region;
• provide basic information on the potential and functioning of dedicated computer tools and discuss the pros/cons of computerized systems versus conventional ones;
• suggest follow-up activities (cascading, meetings, research, application projects) that could be taken up in the future by either AFRICA 2009 or others.
  

Structure: Participants were selected from 21 countries in the region. The working language was English, but participants were not limited to anglophone countries. 2 francophone countries and 1 lusophone country were represented. In addition, 2 resource persons from the Riksantikvaren in Norway were present as well as staff from the NHCC. The structure of the seminar was divided into two parts. The first part was dedicated to the evaluation of case studies and country reports presented by participants. In the second part, three working groups were formed, each dealing with a different aspect of documentation and inventory of immovable cultural heritage including:

• overall documentation policies for managing immovable heritage (facilitator: J. King)
• specific issues relating to inventories (facilitator: D. Chikumbi)
• use of new information technologies (facilitator: W. Ndoro)

Results:

• 21 professionals from Africa representing 21 countries participated in the event;
• 8 resource people from AFRICA 2009, the Riksantikvaren, the NHCC, and the University of Zimbabwe took part in the event;
• A document with the results of the working groups was prepared;
• 5 participants from previous AFRICA 2009 activities took part in the seminar.
  

For more information, see recommendations and final report (Pdf 597 KB).