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Forge partnerships to stem disasters against documentary heritage

In a bid to build momentum towards articulating a global strategic policy framework for sustainable preservation and accessibility of documentary heritage, nearly 900 participants, including policy-makers and experts from memory institutions and research institutions across the world, took part in the 2nd edition of the Memory of the World Global Policy Forum held from 21 to 22 September 2021.

1 October 2021

Last update:20 April 2023

The forum, which was held at UNESCO headquarters and online, acknowledged that disasters, whether natural or man-made, have been a major cause of the destruction of documentary heritage, including ancient manuscripts, government records, audiovisual materials and digital documents, which all contain the collective history of the world and shape human civilization.

A key aspect of the deliberations was how disaster risk reduction could be applied to the sustainable preservation of documentary heritage, especially in view of disasters such as climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, earthquakes, floods, and many others.

In his opening remarks, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, Tawfik Jelassi, underlined UNESCO’s commitment to ensuring the preservation of and access to the world’s documentary heritage through policy advocacy and capacity building based on a disaster risk reduction framework.

In today’s world, which is at increased risk of global crises, we must ensure that our heritage is preserved and accessible to future generations.

Tawfik Jelassi, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information

Faced with the repetition of serious crises, requests to better preserve our documentary heritage continue to increase, and we must set ourselves ever higher objectives.

Kaoru Kamata, President of the National Archives of Japan

In a special intervention, H.E. Mr Ornelio Martina emphasized the importance of documentary heritage as an instrument for building national identity.

The two-day event provided a platform for an exchange of views on such issues as:

Understanding and investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience among memory institutions.
Strengthening disaster risk governance through networking to enhance documentary heritage protection.
Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back Better” to secure documentary heritage and its holding places.

We are very proud of our documentary heritage. We consider it an instrument of our national identity, a tool for nation building, memory of our nation, at the disposal of society, the individual citizen, in support of individual rights and as a tool for active democratic control over government actions.

Ornelio Martina, Minister of Government, Planning and Public Services of Curaçao

In his closing remarks, Mr Jussi Nuorteva, Vice-chair of the International Advisory Committee of the Memory of the World Programme, emphasized that risk management of documentary heritage needs to be part of the general preparedness of all societies to avoid and manage threats and disasters caused by climate change, natural catastrophes, armed conflicts as well as societal inequality and instability.

He also stressed the importance of early recognition of risks for documentary heritage, open access to documentary heritage, safeguarding against destruction and illicit trafficking, systematic digitization, and representativeness and sovereignty of documentary heritage.

Following the two days’ discussion, we have understood that documentary heritage is not an island which is isolated from daily life of human societies and nature around us. Although it is good to ventilate the thoughts we have, the most important and necessary is to find ways to tackle the problems we have detected.

Mr Jussi Nuorteva, Vice-Chair International Advisory Committee, Memory of the World Programme

The Forum was supported by Japanese Funds-in-Trust (JFIT) as a part of a three-year project on “Preservation of Documentary Heritage Through Policy Development and Capacity-Building”.

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