6 April. ICCROM and the United Arab Emirates entered into an agreement on 28 March 2011 to establish a regional training and development centre. H.H. Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Sharjah, and  Mounir Bouchnaki, Director-General of ICCROM signed the agreement in the presence of Peter Jackson, Architect Advisor in the Ruler’s Office, and Zaki Aslan, ATHAR Programme Manager.

The agreement also extends Sheikh Sultan's support for the ATHAR Programme to the end of 2014, in order to enable the centre to conduct ATHAR workshops.

During the meeting, the Director-General briefed His Highness about ATHAR’s fourth workshop on Heritage Education, “Making ATHARnet Effective, Making Conservation Relevant”, held from 28 to 30 March 2011 and hosted by the Sharjah Museums Department. This workshop built on a number of actions undertaken to establish an institutional network for education and training (ATHARnet), as well as actvities to enhance the relationship between conservation education and practice in the Arab region.

Participants of this event included representatives from international organizations and institutions from Europe and the Arab region. These included key players and directors from UNESCO, ICCROM, ALECSO, the Association of Arab Universities, the Euromed Heritage programme, the European Confederation of Conservators Association (ECCO), the United Kingdom Institute of Conservation (ICON), the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), University College London (UCL), as well as national institutions and universities from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and several institutions from the United Arab Emirates.

The objectives of the workshop were to:

• Explore actions to enhance the recognition of conservation-restoration professions by ministries of higher education and culture;

• Discuss the improvement of employment policies in the fields of heritage conservation and management by the Member States;

• Devise steps for the development of a consortium of university programmes and studies for heritage conservation in the Arab Region;

• Identify appropriate activities and collaborative projects aimed at introducing heritage topics in school activities for young people. These included a teacher’s guide focusing on the heritage of the Gulf area.

updated on: 12 April, 2011