France, Georgia, Guatemala, Haiti, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Madagascar, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Senegal, Spain, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and the US, comparable to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The Association of the National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS) was established on September 28, 2006 as the umbrella organization for the national committees. ANCBS and ICBS merged in 2016, to become the Blue Shield. International activities are now represented by Blue Shield International, who also work to coordinate and support the work of the national committees. While in many wars the freedom of movement of United Nations personnel is significantly restricted due to security concerns, Blue Shield is regarded as particularly suitable due to its structure to act flexibly and autonomously in armed conflicts. Despite the partial dissolution of state structures and the very unclear security situation resulting from the wars and unrest in Iraq, Syria, Mali, Egypt and Libya, the employees of Blue Shield and its national organizations then carried out very robust undertakings to protect the cultural assets there. This concerns in particular the collection of cultural assets to be protected, the compilation with local experts of "no-strike lists" (which preserve the coordinates of important cultural monuments), the linking of civil and military structures and the training of local military personnel with regard to the protection of cultural assets. From Blue Shield's point of view, it is not enough to develop and adopt international law norms such as the Second Protocol to the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict or the Doha Statement of the Conference of 'Ulamâ on Islam and Cultural Heritage'. It is necessary to implement these standards effectively on a global scale. This also concerns the prevention of the illicit trade in antiquities and stolen cultural assets to finance military conflicts. As a result of the destruction of cultural assets by armed conflict, war and unrest in Iraq, Syria, Mali or Afghanistan, but also by earthquakes such as in Haiti or Nepal, cooperation has developed between Blue-Shield and national armed forces such as the US Army or the British Army. Other civil society structures The "International League of National Societies for the Protection of Cultural Property", based in the Swiss city of Freiburg, was also established in May 1997 as an international umbrella organisation. Through the activities of these national and international