How creative industries can bridge TZ employment gap

Dar es Salaam. Although it has not been accorded the importance it deserves, the role of creative industry to the creation of employment and Tanzania’s journey to industrialization cannot be underestimated.

The creative industry sub-sector, which entails the areas of advertising, architecture, arts, craft, design, fashion, film, music, performing arts, publishing, software, toys and games, TV, radio and video games, has employed majority of the youth in Tanzania, thus significantly contributing to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

According to the Entertainment and Media outlook 2018-2022 report released in 2017, the entertainment and media sub-sector collected $496 million (About Sh1.1 trillion) in 2017 against Sh71 billion generated in 2007.

The World Bank has reported that around 900,000 young people enter the country’s job market annually, competing for only 50,000 to 60,000 formal sector jobs created each year.

Regionally, the former East African Community (EAC) secretary general Richard Sezibera was quoted in 2015 as telling participants in a week-long Arts and Cultural Festival in Kenya that the bloc was earning $2 billion (About Sh4.6 trillion) from the creative industry annually, twenty times the organization’s budget that year.

However, stakeholders are of the view that the sub-sector could contribute more to the economy if policies, laws and regulations that hindered its growth and prosperity are harmonized.

Presenting their views during the Breakfast Debate organised by the Policy Forum to discuss the entry points to the creative industry and its implications to the national industrialisation agenda, stakeholders said existing policies, laws and regulations governing the industry are outdated and require harmonisation to meet current demands.

They say, for instance, the Cultural Policy 1997; the Education and Training Policy 2014; the National Tourism Policy 1997; the Cultural Heritage Policy 2008; the National Employment Policy 2008 and the Sustainable Industries Development policy 1966-2020 allow duplication of budges, strategic plans and processes for implementation of cross-cutting issues in the creative industries.

Other laws on the spot are the National Trade Policy 2003; the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Policy 2003; the Copyright Act number 7 of 1999; the National Arts Act number 23 of 1984 and the Enterprise Wide Rich Management Policy and Framework 2011.

A study titled, ‘Assessing the Creative Industry for Policy-Making in Tanzania has recommended harmonization of policies, laws and regulations for the sub-sector to make meaningful contribution to the national economy.

“Harmonisation of policies, laws and regulations related to the creative industry will enable Tanzania to make systematic allocation of resources, human resources, build strong artworks, promote new creative jobs, creative businesses and creative economy,” said Dr Charles Ruyembe of the Coalition for Harmonization of Initiatives of Mobilized Local Artists for Better Artworks (Chimaba Sanaa Group).

He said the study has shown many stakeholders are ignorant of the country’s cultural policy, which, he said, was outdated and lacked focus on the wider scope of the creative industry to boost the economy, workforce and businesses.

Dr Ruyembe insisted that Tanzania has to harmonise policies, laws and regulations to become a semi-industrialized country by 2025.

He outlined challenges facing the creative industry including lack of well stipulated qualifications and employment structure for stakeholders in the sub-sector to work in the private and public sectors, hence discouraging competency among players.

He said weak infrastructure development that include theatre halls, exhibitions and cultural centres for stakeholders to carry out their activities were among the challenges facing the industry.

“Too many tax imposed on creative products and goods like when tourists buy sculptures and other artworks could cause loss of tourists market for cultural and creative goods,” he said.

He revealed that lack and limited finance has denied stakeholders startup capitals for businesses.

The other factors hindering the growth of the sub-sector are lack of understanding of the industry’s basic value chain and outdated copyright, neighbouring rights and intellectual property laws.

According to him, the outdated laws have led to rampant piracy of creative products especially audio and video products denying stakeholders and the government of pre-requisite revenue,” he said.

Dr Vencesia Shule of the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) said the fact that drivers of the industrialization agenda don’t consider the creative industry as part and parcel of the industrial economy was the matter of great concern.

According to her, the mindset of industrialization drivers were restricted to believe that industrial products like garments, consumables, bricks were the only contributors to the industrial economy.

“But, some countries including Switzerland, the UK, South Africa and China have developed their economies for promoting the creative industries,” she said in a telephone interview.

She said Tanzania was unable to compete in industrial production like Boeing, but could reap a lot from cultural products including dancing, painting, acting and arts in general.

“We should invest in human labour and export traditional products. We can’t export cars and compete with Japan and China but we can import clothes from China and export traditional dances to Asian countries,” she said.

The National Arts Council (Basata) executive secretary, Godfrey Mngereza, said a look at how Tanzania’s education system linked creativity from the grassroots to higher levels of the value chain was important.

He said less investment was being directed to the sub-sector, adding that subjects like Fine Arts needed to be taught to children at tender age instead of finding the subjects at higher learning institutions.

“We have the Bagamoyo Institute of Arts and Culture, the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and the University of Dodoma all teaching through the creative industry, but the question remains, how many secondary and primary schools teach these subjects?” he questioned.

He is of the view that enough investment should be directed to education for the country to get enough experts to engage in research whose findings and recommendations could transform the industry and therefore the creative economy.

The Bongo flava artiste, Mr Nickson Simon alias Nick wa Pili ,supported Mr Mngereza’s observation that education system should enable the country to identify and develop talents in various areas such as singing, sewing, drawing, painting and many others.

“Some higher learning institutions receive students without knowing their basic and secondary backgrounds, making it difficult for the country to produce competent experts in various areas including textile industries,” he said.

He said Tanzania needs policies that will consider the creative industry as an economy and business activity that create jobs and generate revenue.