New Era

CAPE TOWN - For the preservation and promotion of African arts and culture, several African governments have through various means, been funding and supporting various activities and projects in the arts sector. Therefore in order to highlight common areas of interest and potential growth, the National Arts Council of South Africa recently initiated and invited representatives from various African nations to participate in the first-ever cross-national dialogue on arts and culture funding and support agencies from across Africa.

This was with the objective of getting a broad understanding of funding, to discuss the arts on the continent, to establish common ground and find existing potential areas of cooperation. The dialogue, held at Die Skier in Stellenbosch, aimed to agree on joint projects, to network, to establish links with other role players in the arts and to share experiences, expertise and strategise on developing trade in arts and culture, within the continent and beyond.

Speaking at the African dialogue on the arts, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA) executive director, Sarah Gardner, said that to realise these objectives there is a need to improve policy formulations on arts and culture in African nations.

"There is a need to organise the management of arts and culture support bodies at national, regional and African levels," she told the delegates.

During the three-day meeting it was mentioned that artists have been and are being exploited because there is no legislature enforced to protect them and therefore the need for the creation of arts councils in African countries to oversee and coordinate the arts sectors.

Arts councils, apart from being funding institutions, are bodies that work with legislature and policy creation, advocating and promoting sustainable arts and culture industries.

However, it was found that the only African nations that have arts councils are: Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Swaziland and Botswana that is in the process of establishing such a statutory body. Other countries that were represented mostly functioned under a department of arts within a ministry of youth and sport or information.

The delegates unanimously resolved that ownership and leadership of the creative industries sector was the common vision they shared and agreed towards attaining the advancement of the state of the arts and culture. It was also concluded that a common issue faced by arts and culture practitioners across the continent was the lack of support for the sector by policy makers and the lack of organisation and control of arts and culture bodies.

Having no real umbrella body to oversee and monitor the various workings of the sector was an issue that the delegates agreed needed serious attention from governments. This is with the aim to improve the income-generating benefits that can be gained by artists, especially those at grassroots levels.

Each of the country representatives gave briefs on the state of the arts and culture in their own nations and stated what they hoped to achieve and learn from the dialogue. It was agreed that the main purpose of the dialogue was to initiate the collective working of the various arts and culture bodies and institutions in order to grow and develop the arts, promote trade and create opportunities within the arts and culture industries across the continent and beyond.

"National arts and/or culture councils should not become charity organisations, but should rather aim to create sustainable and income generating creative industries," said Mpho Molepo, the director for the Southern African Theatre Initiative (SATI).

There was an emphasis that giving funds for projects seemed to create a dependency syndrome, which when reduced or cut, artists and arts organisations are not able to survive. Therefore, it was agreed that training, skills development and entrepreneurship training and support should all be part of the arts council's commitments to making the creative industries beneficial to all involved, more especially artists at grassroots level.

The meeting agreed that arts and culture play a critical role in economies especially through tourism, an issue that has been for too long ignored. It was suggested that the structuring and organising that the sector could benefit and get its fair share from the economy.

Gardner also said that networks needed to be created to promote the awareness of arts councils to grassroots artists and arts groups and that there is a need to catalogue crafts and other visual arts on the internet to reach a larger market. This is in the hope of growing the profits that can be reaped from talents, which can then be ploughed back into sustaining and growing the creative industries.

The meeting was attended by representatives from: South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Botswana, Swaziland, Tanzania and Malawi.

The African Union through the Creative Africa Organisation, an official platform based on a clear African ownership principle to mobilise the African and international institutions and the private sector to support the African stakeholders efforts to develop their creative industries. Others were SATI, South African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), The South Africa, parliament, IFFACA, Africa Centre, which is a dedicated to supporting and celebrating African arts and culture and the Arterial Network, which aims to develop and grow arts and culture research within the continent.

Back to Top