The latest issue of Flash, ICA’s twice-yearly Newsletter, is online for ICA members!
Access the members only space and download this issue dedicated to ICA’s historic conference in Yaounde.
 
The ICA conference in Yaounde was an historic event: the first ICA conference on the African continent, it brought together the international and African communities and offered an unprecedented opportunity to raise awareness and to value of the work of African archivists. It also advanced the international debate on good archival practices (p7); on archives and human rights; (p6) and on cultural archives, particularly in the context of the repatriation of cultural heritage in formerly colonized countries (p8). Our community has shown its commitment and solidarity in advancing the cause of archives.
To extend and build on this success, this year 2019, which is the final year of the Africa programme, was designated the “Year of Africa” ​​and will be the occasion of an awareness campaign aimed at African leaders and decision-makers, and which will be organized by the Secretary-General and the Secretary of the Africa Programme (p3).
Among the many topics discussed in Yaoundé were the concerns of archivists and document managers regarding the multiple threats to archives. In the forefront in dealing with these topics are the ICA branches ALA and CARBICA. ALA is currently leading a working group on illicit trafficking (p12) which will be supported and built on by the new PCOM Expert Group on Theft, Trafficking and Falsification (p13). CARBICA has launched the first Caribbean Disaster Relief Network, CHEN (p11).
In terms of international cooperation, the ICA has engaged with other international partners in the Swisspeace project Safe Havens for Archives at Risk (p14)
Finally, in order to act as quickly and effectively as possible in emergencies, that are happening more and more frequently, the ICA is launching a Disaster Relief Fund this year on the initiative of the President of the Expert Group on Disaster Preparedness (EG-EMDP) (p10)
Organized this year in Adelaide, Australia, the theme of the ICA conference is “Designing Archives (p24). This theme is also that of this year’s International Archives Week (p23) and will be an opportunity to highlight the work already undertaken by the Forum of National Archivists on Artificial Intelligence and Archives (p17) as well as to reflect of the Human Rights and Archives Working Group (HRWG) on Ethics (p18).
Finally, this year is also an opportunity to acknowledge ICA’s commitment to training, which leads each year to the organization of training in the field, in particular that organized in 2018 by the Section of Municipal and Territorial Archives (SLMT) (p21), and this year will see the launch of the organization’s first e-learning offer (p22)!
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