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Culture, in all its diversity, is increasingly affected by disasters and conflicts throughout the world, due to a variety of factors, including natural hazards, climate change and political instability, which often reinforce each other.

In the post-disaster and post-conflict phase, the rehabilitation of heritage and resumption of cultural life may contribute to strengthening the resilience of a community, by helping people recover a sense of dignity and empowerment, as well as economic stability. The need to protect culture and promote cultural pluralism in emergencies related to conflicts and disasters caused by natural or human-made hazards, with the overall goal of strengthening peace, security and resilience, has been identified by UNESCO Member States as a strategic priority for UNESCO. 

In this framework, 91Â鶹¹ú²ú¾«Æ·×ÔÅÄ been asked to support Member States’ efforts to improve their preparedness and response capacity to prevent, mitigate and recover the loss of cultural heritage and diversity as a result of conflicts and disasters. For this purpose, the Heritage Emergency Fund, a multi-donor fund for the protection of culture in emergency situations, has been established. The Fund is a pooled, non-earmarked funding mechanism conceived as a flexible means of enabling UNESCO to respond more effectively to crises. UNESCO Member States, international organizations and individuals can contribute to it.

The Fund is managed in the framework of a programme for Emergency Preparedness and Response, its two-fold objective is to assist Member States in protecting culture from disasters and conflicts by more effectively preparing for and responding to emergency situations, and to highlight its strategic role in building social cohesion, stability, and peace.

The Emergency Preparedness and Response Unit, located within the Culture and Emergencies entity in the UNESCO Culture Sector, serves as the Secretariat of the Fund and coordinates the Sector’s Emergency Preparedness and Response programme. 

The Fund’s mandate is to address, through short-term and first-aid activities, the critical needs that arise between the occurrence of an emergency and the implementation of long-term and large-scale recovery projects. The Fund makes rapid action possible which is a unique asset. It fills a strategic gap as it supports swift interventions that rely upon funding immediately available and on standby, unlike traditional financing mechanisms which are based upon planning processes that take time. Moreover, the Heritage Emergency Fund plays a role as a catalyst for further funding since those first interventions and assessments provide the necessary baseline information for the development of long-term recovery projects.