Africa-Press – Senegal. Since Monday, Dakar has been hosting a regional capacity building workshop for documentary archivists and document preservation mechanisms, according to a press release from the UNESCO office in Dakar.
La formation, organisée par la commission nationale pour l’Unesco, en collaboration avec le Comité sénégalais ‘’Mémoire du Monde’’ et la direction des archives du Sénégal, s’adresse aux documentalistes et archivistes du Burkina-Faso, du Cap-Vert, de la Côte d’Ivoire, du Mali et du Sénégal.
Elle est centrée sur le thème ‘’Conceptions et modalités de mise en œuvre d’un plan d’action en cas de sinistre dans les dépôts d’archivage en Afrique de l’Ouest’’.
Cet atelier régional entre dans le cadre de la célébration de la 5ème édition de la semaine internationale des archives, prévue du 5 au 9 juin. Cette 5ème édition coïncide avec le 75ème anniversaire du conseil international des archives.
Quoted by the text, Fatoumata Cissé Diarra, director of the archives of Senegal and president of the Senegalese Committee « Memory of the World », recalls that the participants will diagnose the difficulties with which the management of archives and the conservation of documentary heritage are confronted in Africa. .
“The work will be devoted to the identification of risks, the management of emergency situations such as floods and fires,” she said.
The purpose of the Dakar meeting is to allow « the rescue and recovery of documents in an emergency and efficiency in the event of a disaster in the archives ».
The Director of the Archives of Senegal recalls that « most of the documentary heritage is recorded on very fragile media and kept in unsuitable premises”. Added to this are “the risks of natural disasters, which have become a real threat”. nFaced with these obstacles that weigh on the management of archives, UNESCO initiated this workshop for archival professionals in the geographical area under consideration, the purpose of which is to develop an action plan to react quickly and efficiently in the event of a disaster in the archive repositories.
In his speech, the Secretary General of the National Commission for UNESCO, Aliou Ly strongly underlined the innumerable initiatives taken by the Senegalese committee and « Memory of the World », since its installation in 2009, in terms of training, advocacy and awareness raising. Communications on the security of archive buildings and the security of buildings open to the public were made during the meeting which ends on Friday.
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