Safeguarding Uganda’s Cultural Heritage: An Inquiry into the Opportunities and Challenges Brought by the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Uganda’s cultural heritage includes artistic and cultural expressions such as languages and literary arts, performing arts, visual arts and handicrafts, indigenous knowledge, cultural beliefs, traditions and values, cultural sites, museums, monuments and antiquities. Some of these cultural heritage aspects are man-made while others are natural. Our cultural heritage is important for both sociocultural and educational purposes. It promotes tourism and consequently, creates employment for people. The natural aspects of our heritage have been known to enhance the protection of the environment through indigenous knowledge (discussed in the later sections). The museums, especially community museums, for instance, have made an effort to engage young people through cultural heritage clubs, which are more than 150 across Uganda. The museums have also contributed to the safeguarding of unique and threatened aspects of Uganda’s heritage. Sites and monuments, including historic buildings, are important in preserving and showcasing our collective memory as a country and tell our journeys in terms of social life, governance and administration. Despite its importance, our cultural heritage is usually not adequately supported, maintained, or documented, and people’s awareness of its value is still alarmingly low. At the turn of 2020, Uganda just like other countries in the world was hit by the Coronavirus (COVID-19 pandemic), which virtually brought all aspects of life to a standstill. Tourism, particularly cultural tourism that provides a string on which the safeguarding of cultural heritage is fastened, was severely affected, exacerbating the dire situation that the cultural heritage industry was in before the pandemic. This paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the safeguarding of Uganda’s cultural heritage both tangible and intangible, which includes museums, heritage sites, historic buildings on the tangible side, and the creative industries, traditional or indigenous medicines, and traditional values, on the intangible side. The paper further explores the opportunities and challenges that the pandemic poses to the protection and promotion of our heritage industry.