DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION

African Cultural Banks: Toward heritage sovereignty rooted in local territories

2025-05-19
PACT

Léa Lucienne – edited by PACT

For several years now, debates surrounding the restitution of African cultural objects, looted during the colonial period by several European countries, have occupied the media and diplomatic space. While the return of these objects is now recognized by many countries as a moral and historical duty, one major question remains largely unresolved: which places, which narratives, and which institutions will host and bring to life this recovered heritage?

In West Africa, an ambitious and still little-known response is taking shape: that of cultural banks. Born in Mali, extended to Togo and Benin, and perhaps tomorrow to the entire continent, these community-based structures completely rethink the relationship to heritage. More than a place of preservation, the cultural bank becomes a tool for development, identity recognition, and local autonomy.

We have carefully studied the mechanisms, benefits, and limitations of this model, drawing on the experiences shared by professionals, curators, and community leaders who have implemented it. This subject is not new to us: in August 2024, we had already explored, in a first article, the role of traditional chiefdoms in cultural transmission and the preservation of knowledge, notably in Cameroon. The cultural banks we are focusing on today differ, however, through their more recent operation, their community framework, and their connection to issues of microcredit and development. Whereas chiefdoms embody an ancestral customary presence, cultural banks offer a new path for heritage valorization, one that is local, horizontal, and open to innovative governance models. This new article thus complements our reflection by shedding light on other types of emerging cultural mechanisms on the African continent: our previous article here.

This new piece offers a deep dive into the ecosystem of cultural banks: their origins, how they operate, their social and political impact, and their prospects in an Africa striving for tangible cultural sovereignty.

The birth of an African model of conservation: from museums to cultural banks

At PACT, we believe that the discourse on heritage struggles to break free from the norms that define it. Too often, conservation criteria, museographic systems, or sacralization logics have been imposed by Western countries through institutions inherited from colonization. For a long time, it was assumed that a heritage object could only truly exist inside a display case, in a capital city, under regulated temperature conditions. This standardized and rigid vision does not reflect the realities, values, or practices of many African communities. Cultural banks offer an alternative path: they make it possible to reinvent preservation methods that are rooted, living, and sensitive to local cultures. It is not a matter of rejecting the idea of a museum, but of recalling that preservation is not a neutral act, and that it is essential for African societies to decide for themselves how they narrate, protect, and transmit their memory.

In Mali, in the 2000s, faced with the increasing theft, illicit trafficking of ritual objects, and abandonment of numerous artifacts, a new line of thinking emerged. The goal was to create conservation spaces at the local level, conceived by the communities themselves, in accordance with their customs, beliefs, and daily life. This is how the first cultural bank came into being.

This model is built around three fundamental principles:

  • The community plays an active role: objects are not seized or stored by the state, but voluntarily deposited by their owners, who retain a right of use (for example, for ceremonies).
  • Heritage becomes an economic resource: each deposit gives access to a microcredit, allocated based on a descriptive sheet of the object and its significance.
  • Governance is local: a management committee of around fifteen people, drawn from the community, administers the structure, validates the objects, monitors the loans, and runs the space.
Traditional Batammariba tata, used as a heritage space in the Koutammakou region, Togo. Photo excerpted from the conference DJOWAMON | Cultural banks: a response to the definition of the museum in an African context, held online on February 28, 2025.

In 2008, during a workshop organized by the School of African Heritage (EPA) in Bamako, this model inspired other actors, notably in Togo. In Koutammakou, a region on the border between Togo and Benin, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, a cultural bank was established based on the traditional tata housing and the cultural practices of the Batammariba people. Residents deposit their objects there: masks, helmets, statues, ritual items. In return, they access microcredit to start agricultural or artisanal activities. Each object is meticulously documented through historical records, catalogues, and loan agreements, ensuring both cultural and financial traceability. This formalization strengthens both the credibility of the scheme and the institutional recognition of local heritage.

This model radically transforms the perception of heritage: it is no longer a passive inheritance, but a lever for dignity, recognition, and income.

Microcredit, transmission, tourism: a grounded development model

Cultural banks are much more than community museums. They serve as platforms for local development. Each heritage object becomes a symbolic economic asset. The credit granted, ranging from 10,000 to 40,000 CFA francs, enables the contributor to initiate an income-generating activity. Unlike conventional banking systems, repayment is based on trust, collective responsibility, and reputation within the village. The Koutammakou cultural bank, for example, operates with a flexible system: the object can be temporarily reclaimed for rituals and then returned. This ensures protection from trafficking while maintaining its functional use. This proximity to the object strengthens community ties and intergenerational transmission.

Moreover, these structures attract tourists seeking an authentic experience. The space is no longer a sterile museum but a living place. Visits generate collective income, reinvested in maintenance, cultural activities, and literacy programs. In some cases, mayors themselves are involved in the bank’s governance, further reinforcing the project’s institutional anchoring.

Youth play a crucial role: integrated into management committees, engaged through cultural centers and training programs, they are encouraged to take over the torch. A master’s program in “Culture and Development” even includes a specific module on cultural banks, training future curators of renewed heritage.

Limits, vulnerabilities, and conditions for sustainability

Despite their potential, cultural banks face several obstacles.

  1. The first is the lack of community engagement. Several projects have failed due to insufficient local mobilization. For instance, in an Ivorian locality, a professional led a project alone, without support or involvement. The community did not believe in it, and the site remained empty. Without a collective will to protect heritage and commit to the initiative, a bank cannot survive.
  2. The second barrier is financial. The microcredit system remains limited by often insufficient operating funds. Some borrowers struggle to repay. Although the committees and social pressure act as regulatory mechanisms, activities can be suspended due to a lack of liquidity.
  3. The security crisis also poses a threat. In Mali, several banks have ceased operations because of political instability and conflict. Facilities have been abandoned, and objects displaced. In such areas, heritage becomes vulnerable again.
  4. Finally, the departure of project initiators weakens the sustainability of the structures. Without the transfer of skills or organizational memory, some projects wither. Professionalization, the decentralization of know-how, and the institutionalization of cultural banks are therefore key challenges for the future.

Prospects and continental deployment

The cultural bank model could be adapted and implemented in other regions of the continent. The EPA is currently working on a project to create 10 cultural banks in 10 years. Initial discussions are underway in Central Africa. The logic is clear: to support territories rich in culture but lacking infrastructure, often affected by trafficking, in order to build a rooted, participatory, and adaptive conservation network.

A project is underway in a metallurgical area of Togo to list a new site as UNESCO World Heritage and to link it to a cultural bank. Local authorities are involved. The Togolese Ministry of Culture is contributing to the site’s maintenance by appointing a curator.

A reclaiming of heritage in motion: current events, cinema, and cultural diplomacy

UNESCO plays a central role in this global dynamic. In May 2024, for the first time in its history, the institution brought together all African member states in Addis Ababa to exclusively discuss the return and restitution of African cultural property. This historic meeting made it possible to identify the priorities of the states in terms of conservation, funding, and enhancement of the restituted heritage. On this occasion, many African countries expressed not only their will to recover their property but also to create suitable mechanisms to receive them, such as cultural banks. It is worth noting that UNESCO, through the 1970 Convention against the illicit export of cultural property, is now more firmly committed to supporting restitution as a multilateral process. It facilitates negotiations, trains professionals, supports heritage inventories, and encourages networking among community museums. Its action goes beyond technical assistance: it legitimizes a decolonial vision of culture, recognizing the capacity of African countries to create their own museographic standards. The dialogue between member states during this meeting helped initiate new collaborations, including the creation of support funds and the mobilization of partners such as the African Union or the African Development Bank.

This institutional dynamic is also reflected in the cultural sphere. The film Dahomey by Mati Diop, presented at the 2024 Berlinale, stands out as a flagship work of the new African cinema engaged in questions of memory. It retraces the historic return to Benin, in November 2021, of 26 treasures from the Kingdom of Abomey, restituted by France.

Through the eyes of a young generation, the film questions what “restitution” really means: is it about returning an object, or about reinserting a narrative? Dahomey avoids the trap of institutional discourse to give voice to students, artists, and local residents. The film highlights tensions, misunderstanding, pride, fear of not being worthy, and a desire for reappropriation. It illustrates the limits of purely diplomatic restitutions and the need to imagine livelier, more rooted, more popular reception spaces.

Indeed, beyond the political and museum event, the film captures the voices, emotions, and contradictions of Beninese youth facing their past and identity reconstruction. The viewer discovers the striking beauty of the restituted pieces: the statue of King Ghézo, weighing 220 kilos and covered in iron blades symbolizing the power of iron voodoo and war; the king’s monumental throne surrounded by sculpted maidservants; and scenes depicting a line of enslaved people, a painful allegory of expansionism and enslavement. These works carry within them the memory of a power. The film conveys raw and moving reflections. Some young people say they did not grow up with these stories: “I grew up with Disney, Avatar, Tom and Jerry, not with Behanzin or Ghézo.” Others express shock at the scale of the heritage still held abroad: “90% of Benin’s material heritage is still outside the country.” The film becomes a space of liberation: a young woman describes the emotion she felt upon seeing the restituted objects; others denounce the injustice of receiving only 26 items out of thousands, calling it a “disguised insult.”

Dahomey is driven by a vital momentum: the need to understand, to transmit, to re-anchor. Voices call for building an educational system rooted in local languages and ancestral culture, for making cultural spaces accessible to children in rural areas, for avoiding the isolation of restitutions behind glass, and for making them truly alive. One activist summarizes the issue: “It’s not Macron giving them back, it’s our ancestors returning.”

We wanted to show through this example the deep resonance with the logic of cultural banks: restitution can only be the beginning of a journey. The real challenge is popular reappropriation, local anchoring, and the cultural and political transmission of a heritage reinserted into the life of the people. In that sense, it echoes the ideal of cultural banks: spaces that give a future to the objects, beyond mere physical return.

Mati Diop, French-Senegalese director of the film Dahomey
The team of the film Dahomey, French-Senegalese director Mati Diop alongside producers Judith Lou Levy, Eve Robin, and Fabakary Assymby Coly, celebrates the Golden Bear awarded at the 2024 Berlinale during the closing ceremony in Berlin, on February 24, 2024. PHOTO Tobias Schwarz / AFP

Finally, the most significant recent development is the restitution of a valuable royal stool to Benin, a powerful symbolic act in the landscape of African restitutions. This stool, once used by the kings of Abomey during rituals, was seized during the French colonization in the early 20th century, then transferred to European collections, eventually ending up at the National Museum of Finland.

Beninese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Olushegun Adjadi Bakari, and Alain Godonou, Director of Museums of Benin, observing the ceremonial royal stool “kataklé” in Vantaa, Finland, during an official event on November 4, 2024. PHOTO Jussi Nukari / AFP / via Courrier international

After several years of research, bilateral dialogue, and diplomatic mobilization, it was officially returned to Benin at the beginning of May 2025. The handover took place in Cotonou, during an official ceremony organized by the Beninese and Finnish authorities, in the presence of heritage experts and representatives of the cultural sector. The object will soon be exhibited at the Museum of the Epic of the Amazons and the Kings of Danhomè, while also being regularly presented in schools and cultural centers to raise awareness among young people. The stool, made of carved and richly decorated wood, carries strong symbolic weight: it is both a royal artifact and a witness to a violent history of dispossession.

With this example, we wanted to highlight the diversity of the routes taken by looted heritage… It also reveals that museums located outside the major colonial capitals still hold many looted objects, often little known. Finally, it reminds us that the local anchoring of returned objects is essential: for them to live again, they must be reintegrated into collective memory, not as mere museum pieces, but as active elements of a history under reconstruction.

We believe that the paths to development cannot be dictated from the outside. They take root in territories, in cultures, and in the narratives that people weave to understand themselves, to pass on knowledge, and to envision their future. If cultural banks interest us, it is because they embody this possibility: a form of development built from the ground up, supported by memory yet oriented toward the future. In the face of very real humanitarian emergencies, access to water, food, health, and education, it may be tempting to relegate culture to the background. However, we believe that heritage is not a luxury, but rather what enables a society to recognize and reinvent itself, an invisible yet essential infrastructure for sovereignty. By documenting these local initiatives, we seek to bring forth other narratives, other models. To show that African forms of conservation, governance, and transmission are already alive, bold, and rooted in solidarity.

References

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