The meeting of experts in Warsaw is one of the activities marking the 20th anniversary of the Memory of the World (MoW) program.Footnote ¹ The events started on 1 April and were held throughout 2012, including a MoW Exhibition at the UNESCO headquarters that focused on items that are listed on MoW Register (national, regional, and international) and an international conference held 26–28 September 2012 in Vancouver, Canada, on Memory of the World in the Digital Age: Digitization and Preservation. The challenges and solutions relating to the impact of the technological advances for the preservation and accessibility of the documentary heritage have occupied the attention of UNESCO for some time, culminating in the adoption of the Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage by the 32nd session of the General Conference of UNESCO on 17 October 2003.

The Memory of the World program was introduced by the then Director-General of UNESCO, Frederico Mayor, because the world's documentary heritage belongs to all. It should be fully preserved and protected for all and, with due recognition of cultural mores and practicalities, should be permanently accessible to all without hindrance. The Mission of the MoW program is to facilitate preservation, by the most appropriate techniques, of the world's documentary heritage; to assist universal access to documentary heritage; and to increase awareness worldwide of the existence and significance of documentary heritage. The MoW program reflects the diversity of languages, peoples, and cultures. It was born out of the realization that this memory is fragile and that important documentary material is lost every day.

There are three types of MoW Registers: national, regional, and international. To qualify for inscription on any of the registers, items or collections of documentary heritage must be assessed as having world significance at the national, regional, or international level. The determinations are made by expert committees at all levels of the program, who also seek the assistance of outside experts in relevant fields when making their assessments. Inscription on a register raises the profile of documentary heritage and can assist in its preservation. At the international level, there is the International Advisory Committee (IAC) UNESCO MoW program, whose current chair is Roslyn Russell. The members of the IAC are international experts in the field of documentary heritage preservation appointed by the Director-General of UNESCO. The MoW International Register was created in 1997. There are now 245 inscriptions on the International MoW Register, including the Christopher Okigbo Collection (nominated by Africa), the Diaries of Anne Frank, the League of Nations Archives 1914–1946. Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, the Magna Carta, and the Original Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789–1791).

The MoW program is a three-tier organization: national, regional, and international. The formation of a National Committee in every Member State of UNESCO is encouraged and is a strategic goal. The functions of the National Committee will include initiating and/or and supporting nominations for the international register. National Committees must be accredited by their UNESCO National Commission. In countries without a National Committee, the National Commission for UNESCO may itself choose to exercise the functions and responsibilities. The regional committees are cooperative structures that bring together people from two or more countries in order to pursue the program's objectives. Regional committees provide a means of addressing issues that fall outside the practical scope of the IAC, on the one hand, and of individual national committees, on the other, and provide a mechanism for cooperation and complementation beyond the national level. The three regional committees in operation currently are in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin-America-Caribbean. They are based on geography, shared history, and culture extending beyond national boundaries.

The meeting of experts in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of MoW program was held in Warsaw, Poland, 8–10 May 2012. Organized by UNESCO and hosted by the government of Poland, the meeting was attended by 50 experts covering different geographic areas and professional expertise, containing a blend of representatives—practitioners, professors, academia and national authorities—of the different structures of the MoW on international, regional, and national levels,. The meeting in Warsaw was a follow-up to one of the recommendations contained in Resolution 59 adopted by the 36th Session of the UNESCO General Conference. Member States requested the Director-General to initiate an overall evaluation and in-depth reflection on the modalities of strengthening the MoW program and its impact to meet their expectations both at national and international levels. Strengthening the program was also one of the recommendations of the Warsaw Declaration, issued by the 4th International Conference on the MoW.

The Warsaw meeting was inaugurated by the Vice-Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland. The discussions took place in a lively atmosphere. There were four substantive sessions. The first session was devoted to strengthening the MoW program. Issues discussed include what should be changed in the MoW structure, functioning, priorities, and capacities; and synergies with other UNESCO heritage programs. There was also a presentation on the outcomes of the deliberation of the Working Group on MoW's future legal status. The second session of the opening day considered MoW's challenges, consequences, and solutions to rapid technological advances. On the second day of the meeting, the first focus was on international cooperation. Opportunities for transnational and transcontinental cooperation were discussed as well as the role of MoW in improving preservation and accessibility of documentary heritage on a national level. The afternoon session examined measures that could promote the program's registers. On the third and final day (morning session only), a detailed examination of the final recommendations occupied the entire period.

Some far-reaching recommendations were made by the 50 experts who participated at the meeting. In the introduction, the experts affirmed that on attaining its 20th anniversary the MoW program has become the internationally recognized “brand” and umbrella for documentary heritage in all its forms, analogue and digital. It provides a solid framework for international knowledge cooperation and the preservation of, and access to, documentary heritage. It embodies the values of UNESCO Constitution for international knowledge cooperation and solidarity by raising awareness of the value and significance of documentary heritage.

This key program of UNESCO has been operating all these years without the guiding influence and authority of a normative instrument as is the case, for example, with the World Heritage List. The experts, therefore, appropriately urge UNESCO to develop a normative instrument in the form of a recommendation on preservation and access to documentary heritage. This recommendation should be based on continued involvement of experts in the field. In order to launch the work process for developing a recommendation on preservation and access to documentary heritage through the MoW program, the experts at the Warsaw meeting urged the director-general to propose to the Executive Board at its 190th session in the autumn of 2012 the need for a recommendation on preservation and access to documentary heritage. Furthermore, it was suggested that a preliminary study of the technical and legal aspects relating to the desirability of a standard-setting instrument on the preservation and access to documentary heritage is needed for examination by the 191st Session of the Executive Board, for this proposal to be examined by the 37th General Conference in 2013. The experts expressed their willingness to contribute to the development of such a standard-setting instrument and to sharing their knowledge, skills, and experiences in the field of promoting preservation and access to documentary heritage as well as to the strengthening of the MoW program. Steps for strengthening the MoW program were also proposed. UNESCO was asked to pursue synergies among the three heritage programs (World Heritage, Intangible Heritage, and MoW), including their common promotion and visibility on the UNESCO website and other publications. In addition, efforts should be put into integrating the MoW program in the overall UNESCO partnership strategy. Finally, proposals as to steps to be taken by UNESCO Member States were made, including strengthening cooperation between National Commissions and Memory of the World committees and encouraging the creation of MoW committees where they do not exist; providing adequate resources for the operation of the MoW program at the national level; encouraging liaising with the World Digital Library by institutions in Member States that are custodians of listed documentary heritage; and promoting the MoW program in national policy documents, including advocacy of increased funding for the program.

There is no doubt that the key recommendation of the experts for the development of a normative instrument in order to ensure the sustainability and strengthening of the program is a sensible suggestion. The present absence of such an instrument is somewhat unsatisfactory. It can even be argued that without such a document the program lacks a sound legal basis. Under the present arrangement, the 14-member IAC reviews requests by Member States of UNESCO to inscribe documentary heritage properties on the MoW register. It recommends which properties should be added to the register. These recommendations are then transmitted to the director-general of UNESCO, who decides on the inscription. The position with regard to the World Heritage List, for example, is radically different. The World Heritage Committee, comprising 21 Member States of UNESCO, is responsible for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention. It has the final say on whether a property is inscribed on the World Heritage List. The committee can defer its decision and request more information on properties from the States Parties. The absence of a normative instrument to pilot the MoW may account for the lack of the visibility of it outside UNESCO in contrast to the other two heritage programs, namely, the World Heritage Convention and Intangible Heritage Convention. The introduction of a normative instrument would likely lead to more transparency in the process of evaluation and selection. It should also result in the improvement of the monitoring system of inscriptions. Finally, it could ensure the allocation of adequate resources that would enable the successes achieved over the past 20 years to be sustained and improved upon.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding the lack of a normative instrument, the success of this UNESCO program cannot be denied. It has provided effective mobilization of professional expertise and interinstitutional cooperation on national, regional, and international levels. Registers, publications, and guidelines have advanced the program's mission and goals. And it has evolved foresight capacity to meet the emerging challenges in the fields of preservation, access, and promotion of documentary heritage.