Creative Industries
The Creative Industries, as defined by the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport, identifies 13 industries for classification.
The industries include the arts and antiques markets, architecture, advertising, crafts, design, designer fashion, film and video, music, publishing, performing arts, computer and video games, software, and television and radio. These sectors are characterised by their cultural content and high levels of intangible value.
| Sub-Saharan export data for the creative industries for 2005 | |
| Sectors | US $m |
| Textiles | 2,176 |
| Crafts | 7,484 |
| Furniture | 55 |
| Travel goods | 35 |
| Arts and antiques | 8 |
| Music | 2 |
| Film | 3 |
| Advertising | 18 |
| Architecture | 8 |
| Audio-visual services | 1 |
| Publishing | 2 |
| Other heritage/cultural services | 12 |
| Misc. Manufactures | 1,224 |
| Clothing | 1,345 |
| Total | 12,373 |
The total market size of the creative industries worldwide is estimated to be $2,700bn. Growth rates in 2000-06 averaged 6% a year, twice the rate of the rest of the economy. On this basis, the worldwide figure for 2008 is estimated at $3,033bn. Creative industries are a major growth area in all regions, showing faster and more robust growth than traditional manufacturing and services in terms of employment, added value and profit. The bulk of production and consumption takes place in Europe, the United States and Japan, followed by other OECD countries, and then China, India and Brazil.
Many developing countries have a rich culture and routinely produce cultural products that, while appreciated locally, are not often monetised, or if so, only marginally. Export income to Sub- Saharan Africa is currently very small in most of the creative sectors, other than crafts and textiles.
Textiles and Crafts
African crafts are widely recognised, employ a substantial proportion of the population and contribute to the region’s economic growth. It is very common to find analysis of value chains showing artisans receiving 2% of the retail value of their products in foreign markets. A sustained doubling of this share would uplift the economic position of low-income artisans and small farmers.
Craft exports are frequently undercut by cheaper factory-produced imitations or by hand-made goods from production line shops in low-cost manufacturing countries. Although traditional designs, such as Bambara batik from West Africa, are said to be “lost into the public domain”, Light Years IP and others are working on new strategies to address this issue. These strategies are aimed at securing (and recovering) rights in final market countries for cultural and artisan owners and to build direct connections between rights owners and the returns due to them. “Manos del Uruguay”, formed in 1968, is a cooperative of artisans formed with an innovative strategy – to establish retail outlets in final markets, like Italy, under their own brand.
Film
The global film market is worth about $81bn. Africa has strong traditions of play-writing and performance, and these have helped to support its film-making. Outside of Nollywood, production is mostly artistic and export activity is very small at present. Creative thinking is needed to find niches in the global market and to design strategies for accessing them.
Licensing
Several countries see potential export gains in the licensing of inventions, traditional knowledge and traditional medical knowledge. In some African countries, traditional healers keep their knowledge as secrets known only to their families, as a source of employment for future generations. This tradition, still strong in Ethiopia and other countries, is commercially valuable in that the information is held as “trade secrets”. Several countries have been working on the process of establishing ownership for a sample of such trade secrets. Although only a small percentage of traditional remedies are commercially developed worldwide, Light Years IP believes that the export potential deserves attention through the design of commercially sound and socially sensitive programmes.
Graphic Design
For African landlocked countries with access to fibre optic data transmission, a long-term investment in graphic intensive businesses could be considered as a priority area for investigation. Joint venture design studios with modern production management and overnight transmission to markets could build production-based export businesses initially, which may include such products as plans for surveyors and architects. Then, raising standards to produce more complex products, like books and storyboards, should be seen as part of a long-term move to becoming an IP business.
For future development
An initial estimate of $40m p.a., representing early potential in the non-craft areas, is included in the scale of opportunities table (see page 16 of the report), but no forecasts for the other creative sectors has been included for total potential export income. It is anticipated that these other creative sectors will be analysed in detail in the future. In particular, substantial impact would be made by successful strategies enabling the crafts export sector to gain higher and more secure income.