The event will also celebrate the putting of the Buea Press Photographic Archives in electronic form.

Some 30 participants - mainly archivists and historians - from nine countries, are expected in Buea from January 27-29, 2015, for a conference on the theme, “Validating Visual Heritage in Africa: Historical Photographs and the Role of Archives.” The international mobilisation for the conference is the handiwork of the African Photographic Initiatives (API), Basel-Switzerland.

The conference aims at stimulating discussions and setting the agenda for space, value, role and future of photographic collections within the broader framework of archive preservation. According to Dr. Schneider and Rosario Mazuela of API, participants will come from Nigeria, South Africa, Netherlands, Uganda, Canada, US, Germany, Switzerland and Cameroon.

Schneider and Mazuela, it will be recalled, worked hard to put the Buea Press Photographic Archives (under the Ministry of Communication) in electronic form.

They carried out the work from February 15, 2013 to November 15, 2014. They say they will use the Buea forum to officially close their two-year joint project with the Ministry of Communication, which has put the Buea Press Photographic Archive in software or electronic form.

Rosario explained to Cameroon Tribune that they deployed their ingenuity and expertise to digitalise a total of 42,000 pictures taken since pre-independence till date at the South West Regional Delegation of Communication in Buea. The photographs, made up of 14,000 groundsheets and 26,700 negatives, depict the political, social, economic, cultural and traditional life of Cameroon.

According to the South West Regional Delegate of Communication, Achu Rosette Muma Bih, the Buea Press Photographic Archive has now been put into software to match Cameroon’s technological era. “The pictures were kept in negatives and groundsheets, but in order to preserve them for posterity, new technology was required,” she explained.

She went on, “Since the colonial days, the Buea Press Photographic Archives – which are different from the National Archives Annex, Buea - have been constantly sought by politicians, historians, and various professionals. During the 50th anniversaries of Cameroon’s independence and reunification in Buea, our archives were the centre of attraction.”