Assisting museums in Cote d’Ivoire to increase security in the fight against the illicit traffic of cultural goods

In Côte d'Ivoire, some museums face the threat of looting, theft, or loss of objects. Such challenges may arise from lack of staff training on documentation and inventory procedures, inadequate security measures, or political unrest.  Moreover, budgetary restrictions have led to further deterioration of facilities and collections.

To tackle these challenges, this project helped to improve the conservation of the collections of two museums: the Marie Adiaffi Museum in Bettié (MJMA), a community, ethnographic and archaeological museum in the east of the country; and the Louis-Gustave Binger Museum in Zaranou, which holds a collection of objects from the Indenie kingdom in a colonial building built in 1901 located next to the Ghana border. An emergency rehabilitation program for these museums included securing the buildings and installing new or upgraded storage facilities, providing appropriate technical equipment, updating the inventory, and implementing security measures. The project also included training for over thirty professionals of the ICOM network on the fight against illicit trafficking of cultural goods.