African museums and cultural institutions in the 21st century

A conference was held in Mombassa to discuss various issues affecting African Museums. These discussions do seem however rather like a way for large museums in the west to exercise control over these much smaller institutions. While it is positive that negotiations are happening at all, the African museums ought to be the ones leading the discussions, rather than being led into them by museums hoping to extract even more from these countries in return from loaning them some artefacts that rightly belong to them in the first place.

From:
Daily Observer (Gambia) ^[1]

African museums forge ahead
Written by Hassoum Ceesay
Wednesday, 21 December 2005

Over seventy African museums professionals recently met in Mombasa, Kenya, to discuss on the theme “African museums and cultural institutions in the 21st century: Development, management and partnership”.

The week-long conference held from 4 to 10 December was sponsored by the British Council, Centre for Heritage Development in Africa (CHDA), formerly (PMDA) and the British museum.

The conference enabled African senior museum professionals to discuss the African museum and cultural institutions’ relevance and mission, its national, community and professional roles, its leadership and management needs, and its development strategies, in the light of current realities and challenges. It also discussed orientations and strategies to enhance the management of African museums and heritages, and how to establish a dialogue with UK museums.

The conference heard presentations on various issues concerning African museums today, such as museum leadership and governance, museum advocacy and on building appropriate capacities for new museum roles.

Highly critical issues such as fund-raising strategies for museums were also discussed.

The conference was a big success. The participants were engaged in fruitful dialogue that will no doubt help to better a lot of African museums. A moving part of the conference was the homage to veteran Zanzibari heritage.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 21 December 2005 )