ALIPH

ALIPH, a new international foundation headquartered in Switzerland, has announced grants to support initiatives that address the prevention, protection and rehabilitation of cultural heritage threatened or damaged by conflict.

ALIPH – an acronym which also designates the first letter of the Arabic alphabet – has been created to act in favour of cultural heritage in conflict areas via an aid programme which enables it to be flexible and to react quickly. ALIPH’s three areas of intervention are: preventive protection to limit the risks of destruction, emergency measures to ensure the security of heritage, and post-conflict actions to enable local populations to once again enjoy their cultural heritage. As a result of the widespread destruction of monuments, museums and heritage sites in conflict areas, the President-Director of the musée du Louvre Jean-Luc Martinez published in November 2015, at the request of the President of the French Republic, Fifty proposals to protect the cultural heritage of humanity. These included the creation of an international fund to protect heritage in situations of armed conflict. On the initiative of France and the United Arab Emirates, this idea became a reality after the international conference on heritage in danger held in Abu Dhabi in December 2016, with the creation of ALIPH in March 2017. Since then, the initiative has taken a number of other countries and private partners on board.