Creative industry lobbies for support

The creative industry, which has been neglected for so many years in the country, continues to cry out for support with the latest being the presentation of a concept paper on Integrated Arts Development during a pre-budget consultative meeting.

The creative industry, which smiled recently following the approval of the long awaited Cultural Policy, took advantage of a consultative meeting held at Bingu International Conference Centre in Lilongwe by the Minister of Finance to lobby for funding.

The industry was represented at the meeting by Film Associaton of Malawi (Fama) president Ezaius Mkandawire, Malawi Nat ional Commission for Unesco, Christopher Magomero and Music Crossroads Malawi Director Mathews Mfune.

Mkandawire, who led the team, confirmed yesterday that they presented a paper which they were tasked to do having presented their plans which were underway to help improve the cultural sector.

The concept paper is lobbying for support for the integrated arts and culture development programme which has four sub projects, including a savings and credit cooperative for creators of content, a Production and Marketing Cooperative, a School of Arts and Cultural Heritage and a National Arts and Heritage Council.

According to the paper all these projects fall under the Ministry of Information, Tourism and Culture specifically the Department of Culture.

The paper further says that the culture fraternity comprising among others musicians, filmmakers, visual artists and performers, will benefit a lot from these projects saying they are important in the realization of some of the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS II).

It further says that MGDS II under the theme 'Sustainable economic growth,' cites culture as one of the priorities and that it is an important element to support tourism development.

The paper however, notes that the subsector is not well developed as it lacks purpose-built cultural infrastructures such as museums, arts centres and the national archives buildings.

The consultative meetings in Lilongwe were held on the 26th of March. At the Bingu International Conference Centre.

"Like I have said we went to lobby for more funding for the arts and culture sector. It is an open secret that the arts and culture sector (brings) plots into the economy more than 10 billion every year but the industry is sidelined," said Mkandawire.

He said they want more to capitalise an arts credit cooperative and that they want more for capitalisation of production and marketing cooperative.

He said there is little investment in the arts and that with the projects, the cultural sector will help the government provide employment stressing that at present, the cultural sector already contributes about 3.98 percent of total wage bill in the country as of 2009.

He said that a study conducted by the government through Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma), in collaboration with National Statistics Office and United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organisation in 2013 concluded that the economic contribution of copyright-based industries in Malawi is at about 3.46 percent of the Gross Domestic Product(GDP).

This according to the paper is the eighth ranking contributor to GDP, surpassing sectors like transportation, construction, and mining and quarrying.

"This is only in the copyright based industries. If we factor in the contribution of other none copyright based cultural industries such as festivals, monuments and cultural landscapes, the contribution would be more," said Mkandawire.

He said this is the situation in spite of little investment in culture over the years also observing that the Department of Culture is the list funded department of government and yet it has a crucial role to play in providing conducive environment for increased activity in the cultural industries.

Mkandawire hence said through the concept paper they have outlined several issues that seeks the ministry of finance and economic planning to consider allocating resources towards its implementation.