Museums

In the exercise of its responsibilities, the Museums Directorate is responsible for:

• Implementing the policies defined for the sector, at national level;
• Propose and promote the creation and management of museums and museological spaces;
• Define the criteria for the creation and implementation of museum spaces;
• Collaborate and technically support municipalities in the creation and management of municipal museums, as well as those of private initiative;
• Develop and support actions that stimulate and promote museological culture in the country;
• Develop and support actions to disseminate and promote Cabo Verdean objects and museum spaces;
• Promote and ensure the preservation and defence of the properties and spaces belonging to the museological area;
• Promote research, inventorying and classification of heritage objects and to organise actions aimed at their conservation and valorisation;
• Promote the restoration of movable properties of cultural and museological interest;
• Inventory, collect, organise and make available data and documents that can serve as a basis for scientific work and studies in national museology;
• Decide on requests for cession, loan and temporary or definitive export of incorporated patrimonial properties;
• Propose the prevention of unauthorised exportation of the properties referred to in the previous paragraph;
• Develop and support training and technical capacity building actions in the area of Museology;
• Promote, organize and publicize conferences, seminars, training, among other actions of interest to the Board.

Cabo Verde currently has 24 museological structures, of which 8 are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture and Creative Industries and the rest are managed by public and private entities. These address quite diverse themes and are distributed in a balanced way across the different islands.

The 8 museums supervised by the Ministry of Culture and Creative Industries, through the Institute of Cultural Heritage – (IPC) are located on 3 islands:

Ilha de Santiago:

• Ethnographic Museum of Praia
• Museum of Archaeology
• Norberto Tavares Museum
• Museum of Tabanca
• Museu do Campo Concentração de Tarrafal 

Ilha do Sal

• Museum of Sal Island –Cabo Verde

Ilha de São Vicente

• Sea Museum
• Museum Center Cesária Évora

Ilha de Boa Vista

• Museu de Arqueologia da Boa Vista

Ilha de São Nicolau 

• Casa da Morna Sodade

The management policy for Museums in Cabo Verde, following the guidelines of the governance programme, has sought their best positioning in the socio-economic and cultural context of the country, aligning them with sustainable development strategies, mainly regarding the tourism, culture and education sectors, assuming a determinant role in safeguarding the national heritage, for the knowledge and appropriation of Cabo Verde's history and cultural identity.

Thus, the Museums of Cabo Verde was designed as a project to enhance the national museological framework through the qualification of museums, modernization and reinforcement of their attractiveness.

It is the institutional and governmental understanding that it is time to formalise national museological activity. It is in this sense that the legal framework for museums is currently being updated, which will define criteria for the operation of museums and the creation of a network to improve the level of cooperation amongs different museums, whether public or private.

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