Bolivia – A Centre for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage is born

Experts from the Italian Cooperation Agency gathered in La Paz to present the draft plan for the establishment of a Centre for the Conservation of Cultural Assets and Heritage. More than 50 foremost experts involved in the conservation and restoration of Bolivia’s Cultural Heritage attended the event. Thorough technical and scientific analyses, carried out for over a year by Italian Cooperation experts in Bolivia as part of an initiative aimed at bolstering the institutional role of the Bolivian Ministry of Culture and Tourism, resulted in the definition of a first comprehensive project to establish such an institute considered vital for the conservation of Bolivia’s cultural heritage. The feasibility project that details the structural and technical-administrative organisation of the “Centro Plurinacional de Preservaciòn del Patrimonion Cultural Boliviano”, will now be evaluated by the Bolivian government. The Centre was conceived as a solution to the current difficulties in preserving Bolivia’s rich Material and Immaterial Heritage that reflects the identity of its indigenous peoples, the Afro-Bolivian communities, the intercultural and Metis communities and its national and Latin-American identity. The main goal is to achieve the autonomy required to ensure the conservation and restoration of Bolivia’s cultural assets, by establishing a sustainable Bolivian school for heritage conservation, by producing enough resources to preserve every cultural item vulnerable to deterioration, by developing appropriate maintenance programs and by strengthening a preventative conservation policy.