States' good practices

Several States have digitised the inventory of their public and private collections, with photographs, measurements and location. These inventories, shared with the BIOP, have made it possible to find dozens of stolen works. The cost is modest compared with the results: about twenty euros per entry in States that have adopted standardised input.

The one-stop desk, for its part, simplifies operators' procedures: a single portal to declare a sale, request a licence and report an alert. States that have adopted it note an increase in compliance of 12 to 25%.

Training officials is a decisive factor. States that regularly train their customs officers, police and magistrates get better results in seizures and restitutions. Online modules from the OIMAP Academy are freely available to the administrations of Member States.

Cooperation between services — culture, customs, police, justice, tax — is just as important. Inter-service units meet monthly in several States to share alerts and coordinate actions.

A West African State set up in 2022 a one-stop desk bringing together sales declarations, export licences and theft reports. In two years, the average time to issue a licence fell from thirty to nine days, and the number of compliant operators doubled.

The key to success was involving professionals from the design stage: their feedback made it possible to simplify the forms and eliminate duplicate entries. The State is now sharing its experience with five other countries.