Transparency

On 13 March 2019, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office for International Cultural Policy, the Cultural Affairs Ministers of the Länder and the municipal umbrella organisations adopted Framework Principles for Dealing with Collections from Colonial Contexts, which specify areas of activity and objectives for dealing with collections from colonial contexts in Germany. 

Within the “transparency and documentation” area of activity, the Framework Principles state: “The precondition for the responsible handling of collections from colonial contexts and the related processing of history is the greatest possible degree of transparency, because transparency facilitates global ownership." In this context, the document recognises “the importance of conducting inventories of and digitising collections from colonial contexts” and proposes “ways to support institutions which hold such collections.” As a key step towards concretely elaborating and practically implementing the “transparency and documentation” area of activity, the participants in the 13th Cultural Policy Summit on 14 October 2020 agreed on the implementation of a “3-road strategy” for the documentation and digital publication of collections from colonial contexts in Germany.