Challenges and opportunities in the post-conflict recovery of cultural heritage in the Arab world was the focus of an international conference organized by the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in cooperation with the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, Qatar National Library and Qatar Museums.

Held from 7-8 March, "Post-Conflict Reconstruction of Cultural Heritage in the Middle East and North Africa" gathered practitioners, experts, and scholars from different disciplines and leading universities from the Arab Region, Europe, Australia, and the US, to explore post-conflict heritage reconstruction and the management of cultural resources in the context of post-conflict societal recovery with a special focus on the Arab countries.

On the last day of the conference, the participants held four sessions that discussed various topics of "Palestinian cultural heritage and the policy of the colonial state", "Reconstruction of cultural heritage post-conflict in Iraq", "Reconstruction of cultural heritage post-conflict in Libya", then "Reconstruction of cultural heritage post- conflict in Syria".

Dr. Abdelwahab El-Affendi, President of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, had confirmed in his opening remarks that the recent events and disasters that afflicted the region and the rest of the world have alerted us to the fragility of some aspects of our existence, especially the cultural heritage, which "places great hopes on this conference and confirms the leading role the State of Qatar has played in the efforts to rebuild and preserve heritage".

For her part, Dr. Amal Ghazal, Dean of the School of Social Science and Humanities at the DI, praised the efforts of the organizers and volunteers in making the conference a success. A conference that aroused the interest of researchers and specialists from all over the world with more than 160 research papers sent for participation, of which 27 were selected. She said that the conference intersects with the institute's mission to "attract elite Arab and foreign students, and its endeavor to produce Arab knowledge that would engage and interact with our reality today."

On the sidelines of the conference, an exhibition entitled "Between Aleppo and Mosul" was held, which sheds light, through photographs and artwork, on the destruction of cultural heritage in Syria and Iraq, and the reality of heritage in both cities due to the devastating conflicts and disputes in them.