UNESCO used International Museum Day on 18 May 2026 to publicly commend the Fiji Museum for its role in safeguarding the country’s cultural heritage, while warning that climate change and natural disasters are raising the stakes for museums across the Pacific. The agency’s Regional Director, Sara Garcia de Ugarte, said the celebrations under this year’s theme, “Museums Uniting a Divided World,” highlighted both the civic value of museums and the growing need to bolster their resilience.
“At a time when societies around the world are experiencing increasing polarisation and uncertainty, museums have an essential role to play,” Ugarte told guests at the event hosted by the Fiji Museum. “Museums create opportunities for people to encounter different perspectives and stories. They strengthen mutual understanding and remind us that cultural diversity is a source of wealth and connection.” She singled out Fiji’s “rich” cultural landscape — including voyaging history, oral traditions, craftsmanship, languages and living heritage — as examples of the narratives museums must keep visible and accessible to younger generations.
Ugarte used the occasion to underline an accelerating global shift: the number of museums worldwide has climbed from roughly 22,000 in 1975 to about 104,000 today. In the Pacific, she said, cultural institutions are increasingly linked through regional networks that promote cooperation and exchange — a development she argued is crucial as environmental hazards intensify.
“Climate change, cyclones, flooding and earthquakes are putting collections and cultural institutions at risk,” she warned. “Strengthening museums today, therefore, also means strengthening their resilience.” UNESCO noted it had spent the past year supporting the Fiji Museum through a project focused on safety, security and digital infrastructure, alongside preparedness and risk-management training. Ugarte said that effort was intended to help protect thousands of irreplaceable artefacts and to ensure the museum remains resilient into the future.
Those practical supports, she added, go beyond preserving objects. “Today’s celebration is not really only about protecting the past. It’s really about shaping the future,” Ugarte said, thanking the Fiji Museum for hosting the event and calling it a key guardian of national memory. She stressed the importance of keeping museums relevant and accessible to younger audiences so that living traditions and multiple histories remain part of civic life.
International Museum Day, organised annually by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) since 1977, is celebrated around 18 May with events that can last a day, a weekend or a week. UNESCO’s public endorsement and its recent project work with the Fiji Museum mark the latest step in efforts to combine cultural safeguarding with disaster preparedness and digital upgrades across the Pacific — a region where cultural losses from one extreme weather event can be irreversible.