AFRICA NEWS AGENCY
Cultural and creative industries: a soft power on which Africa must capitalize By Dounia Ben Mohamed
Africa, a land of creativity and perpetual source of inspiration, accounts for only 5% of the global market of cultural and creative industries, estimated at 2,250 billion dollars of revenue per year. This situation is changing today as African players in the sector are stepping up their initiatives to turn the continent’s potential into growth and jobs. Analysis.
For Raoul Rugamba, founder of Africa in Colors (read his interview), the way forward is obvious: «If we want to stimulate a real economic recovery, Africa must increase its soft power and take advantage of the talents it has,» stresses the Rwandan cultural entrepreneur, for whom it is essential to bet on cultural and creative industries (CCI). That conviction is shared by many African actors in the sector.
nable Development Goals in this post-COVID world.
It remains to fill the many gaps in the African creative ecosystem: protection of copyrights - for every Nollywood production purchased, 9 are pirated -; professionalization of the sectors and creation of training insti-
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Financial institutions are also beginning to bet on the sector, like the African Export-Import Bank Afreximbank, which in January 2020 set up a $500 million fund dedicated to creative entrepreneurs. «Creative industries can be powerful drivers for more equitable, sustainable and inclusive growth strategies for African economies,» said the president of the pan-African financial institution, Benedict Oramah. However, he regretted that «due to underinvestment in the creative and cultural industries, Africa is largely absent from the global marketplace of ideas, values and aesthetics conveyed through music, theater, literature, film and television.
«2021, a year full of promise for the creative economy»
While the continent’s youth population is expected to double and reach more than 830 million people by 2050, and only 3.1 million jobs are created annually for 10 to 12 million young people entering the labor market� in the same time interval, CCIs are standing out more than ever as a major job provider. A real growth driver for African economies in search of diversification... and recovery. Hence the UN’s initiative to designate 2021 as «International Year for Creative Economy,” the institution intending to contribute to the promotion of a sector considered strategic - and aligned with the Sustai-
addition to the Nigerian giant, which has set up a fund to facilitate Nollywood productions, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire have released funds to support their film industry. As for the Cape Verdean authorities, they have launched an innovative cultural bank, the Autonomous Support Fund for Culture (FAAC). The Fund takes into account the realities and local needs of the cultural sector, in particular through the establishment of a «cluster» of creative industries and the launch of three national dissemination networks (crafts, arts and museums).
tutes in key sectors (fashion, audiovisual production, graphic design and video games, crafts, plastic arts ...); mobilization of funding, particularly private ...
A momentum conducive strengthening CCIs
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The current momentum is, indeed, conducive to strengthening CCIs. After the initiatives taken by the UN, UNESCO, the OIF, ECOWAS and the AU, it is now the turn of the African states to get started. In
The Nigerian-born banker assures us, however, that «today, change has come». He takes the example of the «astronomical growth of Egypt’s creative exports over the last decade» or «the growing importance of the Nollywood industry». These have prompted the Nigerian government, in its economic recovery and growth plan, to predict export revenues of one billion dollars from this
