Traditional music, dance, clothing and drama can earn billions of dollars for African countries and create jobs, cultural experts said at a meeting in Accra, Ghana.
If member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) want to expand their economies fast, they should shift their focus from timber, cocoa and minerals exports to arts and culture, introducing relevant polices and funding.
Stakeholders from Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Gambia discussed the status of West Africa’s creative industries and the potential for growth and development under the E.U.-ECOWAS economic partnership agreement.
African governments have been paying lip service to their countries’ creative industries, said Chris Addy Nayo with ACP Cultures Plus Culture Policy project, in an interview with The Africa Report.
Instead they should be investing in their countries’ cultural sectors the same way they do in agriculture, mining and oil.
Funded by the European Commission and implemented by U.N. agencies, ACP Cultures reinforces policymakers to strengthen cultural industries in certain African countries including Mozambique, Senegal, and Zambia. This includes funding grants to reinforce the technical, financial and managerial capacities of cultural industries.
Culture and creative arts industries are the fastest growing sector of the world economy, with estimated growth rate of 7 percent of the world’s gross domestic product, according to TheAfricaReport.
In Africa, the creative industries offer massive potential for job and GDP growth, according to AfricanDevelopmentBank. Textiles and clothing together represent the second-largest sector in developing countries after agriculture, with a workforce made up largely of women. There’s great scope to hire more youth, says AfDB.
This growth is due in part to technological changes in manufacturing, distribution and marketing, and changes in intellectual property in the digital world, said Vesta Adu-Gyamfi, director of the Centre for Cultural and African Studies of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, in TheAfricaReport.
“Member countries ought to strengthen exchanges and co-operation between cultural entrepreneurs and artists from West Africa and Europe to promote trade between the two regions,” Gyamfi said.
Cultural and creative industries help countries diversify their economies, experts agree. Culture helps reduce poverty, and it encourages tourism.
West African governments haven’t exploited the economic benefits of the creative industries.
“It is very important that (governments) see the cultural sector the same way as they see agriculture, mining industry or crude oil and to come out with relevant policies,” Nayo told TheAfricaReport. “If you are investing in the mines to get value out of it or crude oil or oil ore to get value, you should also similarly invest in the cultural sector to get value, so governments should come up with relevant policies as well as provide funding to grow the sector.
African culture is richer than some of the foreign products Africans consume, Nayo said, “but the problem had been about the quality stemming from standardization and packaging issues.
“The same way governments invest in other products in the market, they must also respond to these challenges (faced by culture and arts) to ensure our culture and creative arts are packaged nicely to attract foreign taste and bring in the necessary income,” Nayo said.
“Foreign cultures attract us not because they are better than ours but because they pay attention to these things,” Nayo told TheAfricaReport.
ECOWAS members were asked to support artists with training and offer them opportunities to collaborate with international partner organisations to help quality, standardization and packaging.
