ISLAMABAD: UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has allocated $350,000 from the World Heritage Emergency Assistance and the Heritage Emergency Fund to support the needs assessment and recovery of cultural sites and displaced cultural professionals affected by heavy monsoon rainfall in Pakistan.
The natural disaster resulted in significant loss of life, livelihoods, and shelter, and severely damaged cultural heritage sites across the country.
Under the Heritage Emergency Fund, the UNESCO office in Islamabad is conducting a detailed needs assessment of tangible and intangible cultural heritage in selected flood-hit districts of the country to identify the most severely affected cultural professionals in need of rehabilitation.
The organisation is also carrying out a damage assessment of the World Heritage Sites of Makli and Moenjodaro in Sindh, in collaboration with the Culture, Tourism, Antiquities, and Archives Department of Sindh.
The team visiting Moenjodaro identified urgent short-term measures to ensure stabilisation against further damage and long-term interventions to protect the site against new risks created by the rainfall.
In January, a UNESCO team visited Moenjodaro and guided the management team on the stabilisation of the affected structures. They also inspected the circular drain around the site, which was blocked with silt, mud, and wild growth in many places, and recommended measures to prevent further damage.
UNESCO Director Youssef Filali-Meknassi and National Project Officer Mariam Farooqi visited the Makli Necropolis for an initial assessment of the damages caused by heavy rainfall and the urgent stabilisation measures carried out by the site management team.
Detailed needs assessment and identification of short- and long-term measures for the recovery and strengthening of Makli against future natural disasters will be carried out by UNESCO Culture and Heritage Expert Cristina Menegazzi, consultant Conservation Architect Rand Eppich, and the site management team in March.
