Report No. PID8773

Project Name -Cultural Assets Rehabilitation (@) Project

Region Africa Regional Office

Sector Non-Sector Specific

Public Disclosure Authorized Project ID ERPE58724

Borrower(s) GOVERNMENT OF THE STATE OF ERITREA

Implementing Agency Address Cultural Heritage Secretariat, Ministry of Finance P.O. Box 6513, , Eritrea Contact Person: Naigzy Gebremehdin Tel: 291-1-122059 Fax: 291-1-123691 Email: [email protected]

Public Disclosure Authorized Environment Category C

Date PID Prepared January 3, 2001

Projected Appraisal Date November 14, 2000

Projected Board Date July 1, 2001

1. Country and Sector Background Eritrea is the site of some of the oldest human settlement in Africa. Though the beginning of recorded Eritrean history dates to the accounts of trade with its Red Sea ports from around the first century AD, relatively recent discoveries have shown that it has a rich prehistory as well. Early Christian influences date to around 400 AD, Islamic influences followed Public Disclosure Authorized several hundred years later, and these have had a profound impact on Eritrean culture and tradition. A rich civilization flourished around until the 5th century AD which was an amalgam of indigenous culture and external influences, notably from Southern Arabia. Massawa and the Dahlak islands were inhabited by Muslim communities from the early 10th century, and Turkish influences were entrenched, particularly on the coastal strip, by the 16th century. More recent Egyptian control was followed by Italian colonization, in the 1890s, and then by British administrative rule after-World War II. Federation with Ethiopia, and then Annexation, lasted another four decades until independence in 1993.Evidence of Eritrea's rich past is found not only in ancient monuments, cities, and prehistoric sites, but also in the work of traditional artisans who have long contributed to its material culture by producing leatherwork, jewelry, woodwork, and pottery. Rich oral traditions have also contributed to the life of the community, Public Disclosure Authorized strengthening ties to the past -- and enriching the life of the present. Much of this important heritage was virtually ignored during previous regimes, and remains of archaeological sites, marketplaces, and historical and religious structures have in many instances been forgotten. Building and crafts skills, healing traditions, and language skills are similarly being lost with time. Paradoxically, a strong emphasis on literacy in the educational system has undermined the traditions of oral poets -- dependent on a system of memory and recitation which is not captured in written texts. Ancient cities, such as at Qohaito and Sembel, have been slowly disassembled by people in nearby villages who quarry these sites for cut building stones. More recent colonial influences in Asmara and other cities have left a remarkable collection of architectural styles which is unique in Africa, and this too is under threat as new development crowds out the older parts of the urban fabric. Until recently few of Eritrea's historic sites have been managed with the view that they have much to offer to the national, regional, and local economies.Concern for the preservation of its cultural assets has been a major preoccupation in Eritrea, both during the period of the armed struggle and after independence. Activities which are already underway attest to a keen level of interest among a diverse set of actors. The Research and Documentation Center (RDC), originally established during the independence war, holds an exhaustive collection of material from the war and seeks to expand its collection to cover the colonial and pre-colonial period. The History Project (implemented under the auspices of the PFDJ) is documenting the oral and written . Local interests are seeking increasingly to protect historic Asmara's rich collection of modernist and rationalist architecture. The Ministry of Tourism has prepared a National Tourism Development Program which outlines a strategy for capitalizing on the country's cultural assets. Other institutions, such as the National Museum, the University of Asmara, and the Ministry of Education, are similarly struggling to establish programs in their areas of expertise. The level of progress made in these individual activities underscores a commitment, both on the part of the Government as well as in civil society, to accord the management and rehabilitation of cultural assets a place of prominence in Eritrea's development agenda.In 1999, Government created a multi-sectoral and high level Steering Committee on Cultural Heritage under the authority of the Ministry of Finance to begin to coordinate responsibilities and to develop a strategy for cultural asset management activities across institutions. The Steering Committee has prepared a series of policy notes which address national concerns such as the preservation of historic architecture, archeological sites and museums, Eritrean historical documents, folklore, and oral history. These policy notes articulate progress made to date and propose activities to address cultural asset management in each of these areas. Concurrently, draft legislation is being prepared to address issues such as historical preservation, the conservation of cultural sites, and the establishment of a national archive. The Steering Committee remains the locus of much strategic thinking about the direction of Government's approach to cultural asset conservation and management.

2. Objectives As the Government of Eritrea begins the process of rebuilding its economy after the close of the conflict with Ethiopia, it is seeking Bank support with a Learning and Innovation Loan to assist it in testing out and developing the means for more fully integrating the conservation and management of its cultural assets into local and national economic development. The request comes coincident with the progress which is being made in launching post-conflict activities which are oriented toward economic reconstruction and recovery, and other social and economic programs with poverty reduction objectives.The decision to process it as a LIL is because of strong capacity building elements, the pilot nature of individual components for which viable technical, financial, and social

- 2 - solutions need to be tested and developed, and the need for experimentation with different partnership arrangements with respect to the involvement of government, communities, local institutions, and groups of artisans, craftsmen and builders.The project would provide support for testing several approaches, on a pilot basis, for integrating poverty reduction and growth objectives with the conservation and rehabilitation of the country's cultural assets, focusing in part on the unique architectural heritage of Asmara and other urban centers, as well as on selected historic sites, and on its rich written, oral, and artistic traditions. The project would work closely with communities in historic areas, and in urban sites, to revitalize the life of communities through conservation. The project would also strengthen the management of public records both to contribute to the development of a historiography of Eritrea while improving the efficiency of the public sector. By providing support for building skills development, and for small- and medium-size building enterprises, the project would also contribute to the revitalization of economic activity in this reconstruction period. It would support job creation and skills development through a modest civil works programs, and would lay important groundwork for capitalizing on local tourism potential (which had started to blossom before the conflict).

3. Rationale for Bank's Involvement

4. Description The project comprises four components: a) Site planning and conservation. This component will focus on developing pilot community-based conservation of selected historic sites, in particular around Qohaito and Asmara which are suffering from severe degradation as a result of natural and human forces. The component will also introduce community-based conservation approaches to assist in the management of cultural assets created during the independence struggle prior to 1991 (underground theaters, clinics, libraries and other structures, including trenches and fortifications.)

This component will also seek to strengthen the National Museums of Eritrea by upgrading and improving its facilities and establishing linkages through specialized programs between the National Museum and educational institutions, on a pilot basis, in Asmara. It is expected that this activity will contribute to educational curriculum development. b) Conserving the built environment. This component will focus, in selected pilot areas, on integrating poverty reduction and growth objectives with the conservation of the unique architectural heritage of Asmara, and for developing future interventions in Massawa and other sites. The component is expected to strengthen the institutional and legal framework for protecting and conserving historically and architecturally important buildings, neighborhoods, and streets, particularly by focusing on supporting enterprise development and economic growth under a variety of innovative arrangements, for example through custodial assignments and private-public partnerships; improving the delivery of community and public services, by focusing on the conservation and use of community assets and public spaces in a manner which serves the poorest groups; and through training and capacity building to improve the institutional,

-3 - regulatory, and technical capacity of public institutions to manage the challenge of combining urban conservation and development objectives.

In addition to focusing on growth objectives, the project will provide resources to develop the mechanisms for listing and protecting historic buildings from unwarranted changes and modifications; for restoring modified buildings to their original form and shape; and for assessing the nature of the 'built heritage' in other parts of Eritrea, for example, in Massawa, Debre Bizen, Decamhare, and Keren, inter-alia by carrying out detailed surveys and assessments of priority buildings, structures, and public spaces for conservation, and by making selected emergency investments in stabilizing historic structures or in otherwise improving the stability and integrity of important buildings.

c) Supporting living cultures. This component will provide support for the development of language and literature, and for strengthening Eritrea's rich oral traditions, in particular poetry and storytelling, by providing performance opportunities for oral poets and storytellers, by providing training and building capacity in field methods for the collection of oral literature, and by launching pilot field studies to document and record threatened oral traditions. The component will also provide the resources to improve the collection of oral histories and to strengthen the capacity for preparing an Eritrean historiography. It is expected that these activities will be linked to educational curriculum development and to improving literacy. d) Documentation and information management. This component will provide support which will contribute to the development of a system of management of national and regional archives. The focus in the first instance will be to provide training, and capacity building support for the eventual establishment of a National Archive, including equipment and information management technologies to assist in created a user-friendly system of information retrieval. The component will also provide support for improving the management of other public and private archives, in particular the collection at the Pavoni Center, and Asmara's Municipal building plan records.

5. Financing Total ( US$m) Total Project Cost 5.74

6. Implementation Project management would be the responsibility of the Interim Steering Committee on Cultural Heritage, which has been established under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance. Nine institutions are currently represented on the ISC: the Research and Documentation Center, the University of Asmara, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Finance, the Office of the President, and the Municipalities of Asmara and Massawa. Other stakeholders which will be engaged in project preparation and implementation include the Eritrean Society for Historical Architecture, the Eritrean Association of Architects and Engineers, the Eritrean Association of Artists, the Pavoni Center (a private archive), local government officials, and representatives from religious organizations, including the Orthodox Church, the Moslem Council, and the

- 4 - Catholic Patriarchal Office.

7. Sustainability The project would be designed as a pilot, learning, operation with a strong monitoring and evaluation component. The intention would be to put in place a mechanism for learning from the project's experience in order to 'scale-up' into an eventual project with national coverage.

8. Lessons learned from past operations in the country/sector The Bank has been providing support for developing the framework for cultural heritage management through an Institutional Development Fund grant. This activity has provided support for developing policies and strategies towards the conservation of cultural assets, and has provided the framework for moving forward with these investments.

9. Program of Targeted Intervention (PTI) N

10. Environment Aspects (including any public consultation) Issues : There are not expected to be any significant negative environmental impacts of the project. Possible minor impacts may be associated with site conservation activities, but these are expected to be negligible, and in any event are to be carried out under the immediate supervision of the National Museums of Eritrea. The project has also been reviewed by the Department of Environment of the Ministry of Lands, Water and Environment, which has also classified the project as a Category C project (consistent with the National Guidelines for Environmental Impact Assessment), and has reviewed and commented upon the Project Implementation Plan.

11. Contact Point:

Task Manager Peter A. Dewees The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington D.C. 20433 Telephone: 202-473-3959 Fax: 202-614-0959

12. For information on other project related documents contact: The InfoShop The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 Telephone: (202) 458-5454 Fax: (202) 522-1500 Web: http:// www.worldbank.org/infoshop

Note: This is information on an evolving project. Certain components may not be necessarily included in the final project.

This PID was processed by the Infoshop during the week ending January 5, 2001.

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