Creative industries,
The under-utlized African resources

Part 1

By Abiy Demilew

For a number of decades, the world interpreted them not much more than creativities of cultural and traditional outfits, and sources of entertainments. But as these sectors kept advancing towards their industrial scales, and kept heavily impacting on the global economic indicators; the world had to stop and think again.
Very recently, in 2005, the United Nations and its affiliates, based on intensive research and case studies, were able to see how these industries are impacting not only on the economic development of countries, but also their significant momentum on the global economy. United Nations recognized creative industries as the booming and rapidly growing economies.

Overview:
The United Nation’s Economic Report 2008, launched in Accra, Ghana, April 20 – 25, at the vibrant 12th session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), defines Creative industries, lying in the heart of creative economy, as the cycles of creation, production and distribution of goods and services that use creativity and intellectual capital as primary inputs.
Creative industries constitute a vast and heterogeneous field dealing with the interplay of various creative activities ranging from traditional arts and crafts, publishing, music, and visual and performing arts to more technology-intensive and services-oriented groups of activities such as film, television and radio broadcasting, new media and design.
The creative sector, characterized by its flexibility and modular market structure, it ranges from independent artists and small-business enterprises at one extreme to some of the world’s largest conglomerates at the other.
Today, as confirmed by the UN’s report, creative industries are among the most dynamic sectors in world trade. Over the period 2000-2005, international trade in creative goods and services experienced an unprecedented average annual growth rate of 8.7 per cent with the value of world exports of creative goods and services reaching USD 424.4 billion in 2005, representing 3.4 per cent of total world trade.
Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General, UNCTAD, opening the Accra summit, clearly underscored that, developed countries are still dominating the global market for creative products. For example, the turnover of the European creative industries amounted to 654 billion euros in 2003, growing 12.3 per cent faster than the overall economy of the European Union and employing over 5.6 million people.
China, leading this process by putting in place tailored cross-cutting policies to enhance their creative industries, have started benefiting from the dynamism of the global creative economy and became the world’s leading producer and exporter of value-added creative products in 2005, in an evidenced finding.

What about Africa?
Now, the question one should ask at this point is, ‘what is the Africa’s share of global trade of creative products?’
Sadly enough, Africa, the richest continent of cultural and traditional artistic civilizations, creativity and talents, unfortunately, remains marginal from the global market of creative products with less than 1 per cent of world exports.
Africa, not only has underutilized its potential creative resources, but also has not yet paid attention for this new economic sector still being unable to harness its creative capacities for the overall development.
Besides the sufferings from domestic policy weaknesses and global systemic biases, the creative industries in Africa are generally fragmented, according to UNCTAD’s report on African creative industries. The report also mentions that, the basic elements of creative industries such as the cycle of production, marketing and distribution are not complete in Africa.
According to the study, in Africa, despite the profusion of talent on the continent as well as the richness of cultural tradition and heritage, there has been limited commercialization of African cultural and artistic creations on both the domestic and foreign markets.
Even though African nations, through their ministers of culture, on the first Ordinary Session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Culture, adopted The Nairobi Plan of Action for Cultural Industries in Africa, including its ‘Plan of Action for Development of endogenous Cultural Industry in Africa within the Perspective of Setting Up an African Cultural Common Market’, 10-14 December 2005, in Nairobi, Kenya; Africa still continues not to benefit from the sector.
“The situation is problematic,” the report warns, “as it could lead to the gradual impoverishment of the cultural heritage of African countries.” In the absence of a secured decent income, it is not surprising that talented people are not attracted by a career as artist, musician, filmmaker or craft worker and that the leakage of talent from developing economies is severe. Without development of the industries that support this talent in these economies, there is every reason to assume that this trend will continue.
Creative Africa, road-mapping Africa’s future
As time Flies for African creative professionals, policy makers, civil societies and citizens, in road-mapping the platform for the future of the creative industries of the continent, Creative Africa has been born in addressing the quest of African creative industries, with a view to bringing greater pragmatism to the policy debates.
The Creative Africa concept is based on ownership and partnerships including all stakeholders, with the aim of advancing the development cause and putting in place a sustainable strategy to build a robust creative economy in Africa with encounters providing a platform to shape business, investments, partnerships and international cooperation through action-oriented initiatives, according to the UNCTAD report.
Convened by Agoralumiere International, the Pan-African Non Governmental Organization and mandated by UNCTAD for the delivery of the Creative Africa Initiative at UNCTAD XII (20-25 April, 2008) in Accra, Ghana; creative Africa held a series of vibrant discussions with representatives from the Pan-African creative industry sectors and friends of the Creative Africa initiative, on the ownership, partnership issues and implementation of Creative Africa, after its launch to work as mandated by the Secretary General of UNCTAD from the African ownership perspective and under the leadership of the African Union.
The feature continues on Agoralumiere, the Accra group and the African Union’s policies and steps towards creative industries and economy; with analysis of Ethiopian creative industries in the African context, next week.