Egypt's Ambassador at UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Mohammad Sameh Amr on Monday took part in the international experts meeting on the preservation of, and access to, documentary heritage held here under the auspices of the UAE Presidential Affairs Ministry.

The meeting is held under the chairmanship of Abdulla El Reyes, Director General of the National Archives of the UAE and Chairman of UNESCO Memory of the World Program.

The Egyptian ambassador said the meeting is a step on the way of implementing UNESCO congress decision on preservation of heritage, including the digital heritage.

The meeting is held n Abu Dhabi as part of the steering committee of the UNESCO PERSIST Project on digital sustainability. It will be deciding how to disseminate and test the PERSIST Guidelines for the Selection of Digital Heritage, which is the first concrete outcome of the PERSIST project of UNESCO. 

The meeting will discuss how the world can preserve digital information over longer periods of time is a very serious issue that affects everyone. Carriers like hard disks have a short life span, and even if one manages to keep the bits and bytes, the risk that current hard- and software is unable to process older data is very real. Archives, museums and libraries cannot solve this problem on their own. Solutions must come from a dialogue between these institutions, governments and the ICT-industry. The UNESCO PERSIST Projects is the platform for this dialogue.