STATISTICAL INFORMATION CRITICAL TO THE ARTS AND CULTURE DEBATE

 

By Raisedon Baya

The advocacy on Arts and Culture in Zimbabwe and possible the rest of Africa has focused more on the need for governments, particularly African governments, to recognise and subsidize the promotion and preservation of African arts and culture and over the years a considerable amount of resources have been spent trying to convince African governments about the importance of arts and culture and the need to premise our development agenda on African culture.  While there is a general consensus on what should be done most governments have responded negatively towards arts and culture, choosing to concentrate on health, education, and housing as priority areas.  As a result a result a growing sense of unease pervades the sectoras it sets about trying to justify its consumption of public funds. Instead of talking about what the sector does –putting up exhibitions or theatre performances – there is now a serious need to demonstrate and even prove the contribution of the sector to the country’s GDP

Responding to advocacy calls African policy-makers have asked the sector to justify the sector’s existence and give reasons why any government should prioritise the sector’s needs. How much is the sector worth? What percentage is it contributing to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? How many people is the sector actually employing? How many jobs does the sector create in a year? How much wealth is created? Confronted by the questions most artists and arts activists have offered nothing but a variety of inaudible responses. The honest truth is that there are no figures, no statistics for the sector to wave at policy makers in response to their questions.  And without statistics arts activists can howl and wail and scream all they want about the importance of arts and culture and the need for African governments to fund the arts but, as always, the results will be the same. Negative. 

While the creative arts sectors of Asia, Europe and America can easily demand and get attention from their governments because they can and have proved their worth the same cannot be said about Africa. The creative sectors in Asia, Europe, and America have tangible facts in their hands. They have proper industries, with structures that one can comprehend. These structures have made it possible to collect qualitative and quantitative data to support the argument about the sector’s contribution to the various national economic purses. The creative arts sector in the mentioned continents can stand up and talk about what they have done, what they have brought in. They can give you figures about how many youths are being trained to become professional artists, how many are employed and the value they bring to their respective nations. This data is on their fingertips and it is public knowledge.

However, it is not the case in with Zimbabwe.Oliver Mutukudzi is Zimbabwe’s biggest cultural export at the moment. The likes of Dominic Benhura, IYASA, Black Umfolosi, Rooftop Promotions and others travel outside Zimbabwe exporting artistic products every year. Artistic products from crafts, visual exhibitions and performances are consumed everyday. But sadly we cannot place a value on the sector. At the moment one wonders whether we have any idea - a figure perhaps, about how much Tuku has contributed to the Zimbabwean economy Does anyone have clue how much the whole sector has contributed to the Zimbabwean economy? Without these figures our any argument or debate on the importance of arts and culture becomes watered down and weak. 

During a discussion on the importance of subsidies in the arts sector one civil servant, in defence African governments, pointed out that in most African countries arts and culture is nothing but a big consumer of public funds. “The sector spends, and spends, and brings in nothing,” he lamented. In his eyes there was no economic value in the arts. The civil servant then went on to cite a lot of activities involving the arts that African governments were funding indirectly. And he made a lot sense.

For the problems are too many. First, most of the sector is being run as an informal sector. Secondly, there are too many government departments running and controlling different aspects of arts and culture. Arts and Culture activities are scattered in about 12 departments, departments that don’t even meet to synergise and look for common ground.  No one is collecting statistics. As we writethe Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust through a UNESCO grant is compiling statistics on the arts however, their research is limited to Harare, Norton and Chitungwiza. Hopefully, this will be followed by a broader and nationalistic approach. 

The honest truth is we need figures to measure the economic growth of the sector and its potential. We need to have an idea how many jobs we are creating and can be created. We need to know how much revenue the arts are realising every year and how much wealth is being created.Without figures our words have no weight, and no value.

Kindly Bookmark and Share it: