These needs was given full expression at the extraordinary ICA congress on
access to archives which was held in Washington in 1966. The number of
delegates from developing countries was larger than ever, thanks to grants from
the Council on Library Resources. A report on the situation in the newly
independent countries written by ICA's executive secretary Charles Kecskeméti,40
and the contributions of the delegations of the young countries did not fail to
paint an alarming picture of the situation. Consequently, the congress resolved
to give the highest priority to development programmes in non-industrialised
countries and to establish Regional Branches in which countries all over the
world could unite their efforts to improve the archival situation.
In order to prevent archivists in young countries from making the same mistakes
as their colleagues in the industrialised world professional experience and know-
how should be made available to countries without sufficient archival traditions.
Despite the excessive magnitude of the task, an optimistic feeling prevailed
which was characteristic of those years, when it seemed as if no boundaries were
set to concerted efforts to bring about a better world. Archival infrastructures
should be set up or improved, adequate legislation adopted, personnel trained
and housed in appropriate buildings, and provided with up-to-date equipment
for reproduction and restoration.
Because most archives in developing countries had to cope with shortage of
competent staff one of ICA's first goals was to improve professional education.
In the past Unesco had granted individual archivists from new countries the
possibility of following courses in Europe or North America. But only a handful
of colleagues had benefited from such an opportunity. In addition to that,
conditions in the homeland and the host country differed sometimes so
completely that archivists, returning from training abroad, found themselves
lost in their own country.41 The establishing of regional centres for basic profes
sional and technical training was felt to be the best solution of the problem.
A fund-raising campaign for this project started in 1967 but turned out to be
hardly successful. Finally money became available from the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP). Because needs in Africa seemed most urgent,
the first centres were planned in that part of the world. In 1971 a regional
training centre in Dakar, Senegal, meant for francophone Africa, started and
proved to meet urgent needs. The take-off of a similar institution for anglophone
Africa in Accra, Ghana, was delayed for several years as a result of problems with
staff, housing and funding. This centre opened in 1975 but after 1980, as
supranational grants enabling foreign students to follow its courses ceased, lost
its regional function. Lack of finances troubled a school for South East Asia in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the outbreak of a civil war thwarted the opening of
166
an archival training centre for Arab countries in Lebanon in 1976. A professional
school for Latin America was opened in Cordoba, Argentina.42
Courses and fellowships of a few months still continued to be organised by
metropolitan countries. Probably the most renowned is the Stage Technique
International des Archives, a post-qualification training course at the National
Archives in Paris. In Britain, University College London organised training
specifically designed for archivists working in former British colonies43 and in
the period 1972-1992 the Spanish government offered the Organisation of
American States a Curso sobre Organización y Administración deArchivos
Historicos, from which benefited approximately 300 students from Latin
American and Caribbean countries.
Whereas these and training offered by other countries required students
from non-industrialised countries to travel to Europe or North America, "travel
ling teachers", experts and consultants went in the opposite direction, in order
to conduct short-term courses, to study problems in loco and to advise
colleagues and local authorities on archival matters. The results of these
missions were not always positive. Consultants with an obvious lack of know
ledge of local conditions recommended solutions for which there was no
administrative or technological infrastructure, a way of conduct that was
frequently felt to be humiliating. Hundreds of reports have been written on these
missions, containing detailed analyses of the situation in many countries in the
world, thus providing the historian of the profession with a rich body of sources,
but with an impact which is hard to evaluate.44 It is not an unusual
phenomenon, however, that a development project of which the drawing up of
an expert report had been a first step is being frustrated by lack of money,
administrative and technical infrastructure, and sufficient support from higher
ranking officials.
From its very start ICA offered archivists and specialists in various branches of
archival science an opportunity to study and discuss problems of professional
interest with foreign colleagues thus facilitating the advancement of the profes
sion. Meetings of specialised working parties, committees and sections often
took place on the occasion of the international congresses and CITRAs, evoking
the idea of "an archival circus" moving around the globe. Some of these groups
were active for many years, others disappeared after only a short time or led a
sleeping existence.
The eighties and nineties especially saw the establishing of a large number of
committees and working groups reflecting the increase of specialisation within
the profession.
167
DE PROFESSIE
2.8 A global horizon
40 Charles Kecskeméti, "Les activités et les problèmes du Conseil International des Archives", Archivum 16
(1966), pp. 197-206.
41 Joshua C. Enwere, "Archives of the Third World and Education and Development", Janus (1992), pp. 344-
3 52.
JAN VAN DEN BROEK FROM BRUSSELS TO BEIJING
2.9 Developing the profession
42 W.I. Smith, "The ICA and Technical Assistance to Developing Countries", American Archivist 29 (1976),
pp. 343-351.
43 Elizabeth Danbury, "Archives of the Third World and Training and Development", Janus (1992), pp. 340-
343.
44 Charles Keckskeméti, "De la politique de développement des archives" in Friedrich P. Kahlenberg, ed.,
Aus der Arbeit der Archive. Beitrage zum Archivwesen, zur Quellenkunde und zur Geschichte. Festschrift für
Hans Booms (Boppard am Rhein, 1989), pp. 3-8. Here: pp. 3-4.
