Zimbabwe launches Culture and Creative Industries Strategy
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation, Kirsty Coventry officially launched the country’s Culture and Creative Industries Strategy on 26 October 2020.
The strategy is a roadmap that will guide the development and growth of the cultural and creative industries (CCIs) sector from 2020 to 2030. It seeks to strengthen, inspire, empower, transform and energise Zimbabwean CCIs business of all scales at every level of their value chains to catapult their contribution to inclusive sustainable economic growth and development.
In her remarks, Minister Coventry reached out to organisations and individuals to collaborate with her Ministry to unlock the inherent value and potential of CCIs to become a formidable and robust economic sector for Zimbabwe.
She thanked the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa for its collaboration and facilitation through availing expertise from the UNESCO/EU expert facility, in particular, the Expert Mr. Farai Mpfunya. She also expressed her appreciation of the consultation process by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe through consultation indabas and the culture and creative practitioners who contributed to the development of the Strategy.
The Strategy consists of the following ten pillars that are important to the enhancement of the sector and the achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals:
- Cultural markets and business development
- Intellectual property
- Funding, financing and investment
- Education, capacity building and training
- Cultural infrastructure
- Cultural statistics and research
- Media, information and communication technologies
- Cultural diplomacy and global business
- Cultural governance and,
- Safeguarding cultural heritage
During the implementation of the Strategy, the Ministry will include a wide range of stakeholders from the public and private sectors. The Ministry will work through its agencies of National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) and the National Gallery of Zimbabwe (NGZ) to collaborate with Government Ministries, other government agencies, CCIs practitioners, Arts Associations and Organisations, development partners, the corporates, civic society and well-wishers. Various State and private-owned institutions including the media, Universities, Polytechnics, Teacher Education Colleges and those specialised institutions that not only offer technical training, but also nurture and expose creative talent, including the film and theatre schools, will be duly courted.