Article from The Barbados Advocate
2/26/2012
The Cultural Industries Bill is an important start but it is only one part of the process needed to develop Barbados’ creative industries and creative economy.
That is according to Director of the Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Dr. Keith Nurse, who was speaking on the topic ‘A Creative Industries Strategy’ at the Ministry of Family, Culture, Sports and Youth’s Cultural Industries Stakeholders Consultation held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre yesterday morning.
“The Cultural Industries Bill as important and useful as it is, it is only one part of the pie and part of the process ... but we need to build on that. It is not too difficult. We have a small country here with a population of about 300 000 ... We could organise this in months. It is well within our capacity and it doesn’t require a lot of resources either,” said Dr. Nurse.
He also contended that if the strategy is purely to be driven from the Ministry of Culture, “we are starting off on the wrong foot” as he stressed that all sectors must be involved in the development of the cultural industries.
According to him, four key things need to be done in phases. These include stakeholder engagement sector by sector to come up with strategic plans for each sub-sector because the requirements for each vary.
“We need to develop strategic plans and feasibility studies for particular projects/initiatives. In each one of those sub-sectors, once you have created a priority list, it is about implementation, which agencies are going to shoulder the responsibility, where is the division of labour in terms of the resources ...”
He added that there must be monitoring, evaluating and feedback systems for each of the plans, policies and projects to adjust and redefine them accordingly.
Dr. Nurse also stated that human resource development for both artists and creative entrepreneurs is needed to drive the sector.
“There needs to be a critical investment in terms of enterprise development, mapping, documenting and coming up with strategic plans and business plans. If you don’t know what you are dealing with, you can’t measure it ... and this sector is largely unmapped, undocumented ... Trade policy, industrial policy and innovation governance is a critical area as well,” he continued.
“Without creative arts, there are no creative industries, no creative economy or capital. So the business starts with artists. The art in itself does not create an industry or economy. You require a market place within which those arts are then exhibited, distributed, provided, whether for profit or not.”
Dr. Nurse noted that the Caribbean is behind and this is one of the challenges.
“One of the key challenges we are faced with is that we are now catching onto the idea of creative industries when in fact the global economy has shifted towards creative economy and creative capital. So we are late out of the gate,” he said.
The director noted that in the last decade or so, there has been a shift towards the creative economy and more recently what is called creative capital.
“The creative economy is where there is an increasing understanding that creative industries impact on other sectors. Creative capital is the key driver of competitiveness for most industries,” said Dr. Nurse.
Article from The Barbados Advocate