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.
lovely stuff. For a very long time missing in local discourse
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