How can the African Creative Industry better Represent Itself?
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How can the African Creative Industry better Represent Itself?
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By Naam Chakravorty, Gulf Lead, Botho Emerging Markets Group
December 20, 2022
A country's creative sector has the potential to change its economy and dramatically boost its soft power on the international stage. However, many emerging markets don’t always prioritise the creative sector as an engine for growth. Within Africa, in particular, the absence of data and the informal nature of the creative sector in African countries make it difficult to determine the extent to which creative businesses contribute to economic growth and the critical factors for the sector's development. Effective data collection and analysis is the first step in understanding how African countries' creative industries are performing. This could also help to improve how the African creative industry presents itself on a global scale.
Currently, data collection in African countries is relatively fragmented and often managed by third-sector organisations, such as UNCTAD and UNESCO, which makes it challenging to determine each country's growth trajectory in relation to its creative sector goals. In Ghana, for example, creative and cultural activities account for 1.53 percent of the country's GDP, according to UNESCO estimates. However, this figure does not account for the informal creative sector, which is thought to make up around two-thirds of the Ghanaian creative economy.
In contrast, governments in emerging markets that have created an intentional framework for mapping their creative industries, especially the informal sector, have seen tremendous growth. For instance, the Indian “cottage industry" - broadly defined as small manufacturing businesses owned by an individual or a family, who often work out of a home rather than a properly designed facility - had been at risk of going extinct with the advent of industrialization and, in the case of the textile and apparel industry, fast fashion in the nation. The Indian government took strategic actions in the 1990s to protect both the economic health of small village businesses and the nation's long-standing creative traditions. Now, cottage and small-scale enterprises account for more than 40% of India's overall industrial output, indicating that the government over the past few decades has been successful and some of their practices are noteworthy.
Firstly, the government of India established several dedicated organisations to assess the state of small creative businesses and evaluate the support they required. These organisations include the Central Silk Board, the AH India-Handloom Board, and the Khadi and Village Industries Commission. Although each of these semi-state organisations performs a variety of tasks, their emphasis on R&D, training, technology transfer, market development, and export promotion is a common thread.
Secondly, the collection of information or data and the understanding of the cottage industry were bolstered by appointing community leaders - rather than relying on the work of external stakeholders. For instance, Rajasthan, a Western state in India, has a number of villages, each of which is well known for a particular sort of handicraft. Each village is represented by a community leader, who acts as an intermediary between traditional artisans and the government. These community leaders petition the artisan's needs, challenges, and opportunities to the government periodically based on the information they have gathered from the artisans. The information collected by community leaders is carefully stored and added to a countrywide dataset, the contents of which are published annually in a report by the Indian Ministry of Textiles for the benefit of all interested stakeholders.
Finally, community leaders, in collaboration with various semi-state organisations, create a database of various small creative businesses under different classifications, such as cotton weaving, silk weaving, leather production, metalworking, etc. They also evaluate what these businesses need in order to operate successfully. Based on the information collected over years, government provisions have been subsequently implemented, such as increased access to microcredit through a range of financial institutions and awarding exclusive manufacturing rights for some commodities to businesses that qualify under the "cottage industry."
India’s cottage industry serves as an excellent example of how the informal creative industries in other emerging countries can be organised and properly represented. National agencies’ data collection usually focuses on aggregate figures, such as the gross value added, the number of businesses, total employment, and overall exports of the creative economy. Estimates based exclusively on formal trade, however, undervalue the creative sector's overall contribution.
Presently, select African countries are missing out on the contribution that the creative industry can make to their economies by neglecting to set standards for efficient data collection and analysis that is inclusive of the informal sector. Establishing government agencies that are dedicated to serving the informal sector and overseeing the data collection processes in a manner similar to India will pave the way for determining the informal sector's impact on the creative industry and, by extension, the overall national economy. Annual data collection in both the formal and informal sectors will provide a holistic view of the creative economy of African markets and help to regularly assess its needs, challenges, and opportunities for growth.
Furthermore, publishing the data gathered from formal and informal creative sectors annually would increase visibility into market trends, such as consumer demand, supply-side issues, and obstacles to scale for small and informal businesses. This transparency would encourage homegrown entrepreneurs to solve market gaps, or commercial investors to take advantage of the market opportunity and support the government through investments, infrastructure development, and related initiatives. An annual "National Creative Sector Report" will increase the established government body's accountability and help continental organisations like the AfCFTA and the African Union (AU) best present the opportunities offered by the continent’s creative sector on a global stage.
Naam Chakravorty is the Gulf Lead at Botho Emerging Markets Group