Another round of intense consultations and institutional meetings engaged War Free World Heritage Listed Cities project partners’ in Lebanon from 8 through 12 April.
Those meetings followed a similar exercise made in Georgia earlier in February, and counted on the presence of high ranking officers and institutional referents in Beirut at UNESCO Regional Bureau, at the Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon, at the Directorate General of Antiquities of the Ministry of Culture. The consultations culminated with a meeting at H.E. the Minister of Culture. A further meeting took also place at UNESCO International Centre for Human Sciences in Byblos.
The purpose of this series of meetings was to define the ground existing in Lebanon for a concrete inter-institutional cooperation involving national and local institutions in the implementation of the 1999 Second Protocol of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed conflict.
A project partners’ meeting took also place in Byblos at the Council of the United Municipalities of Jbail during this five days mission. A review of the intense project agenda was also conducted including: the upcoming issue no. 7 of the Newsletter which due to be published; the International Workshop due in Rome during Mid-May; a Public Awareness Promotion initiative to be implemented both in Byblos and Mtskheta secondary schools during 2013, and a cycle of introductory Trainings on Civil Military Cooperation for the implementation of Risk Preparedness Plans for the protection of cultural heritage during times of armed conflict. The current state of project implementation was also conducted and validated at different levels during the mission.
More information will be soon available online.