Africa Creatives Alliance launched to boost economy

The Africa Creatives Alliance has been launched to boost the creative economy in the African continent.

The ACA launched recently in alignment with the African Union’s Agenda 2063, ‘The Africa We Want’, is poised to become a key catalyst for transforming Africa into a global powerhouse by harnessing the immense potential of the continent’s cultural and creative sectors.

It was hoped that the alliance would empower cultural and creative entrepreneurs to contribute to Africa’s development and integration goals fully.

The ACA, in collaboration with a diverse consortium of partners, including the African Union, UN-Habitat, MoTIV Africa, Inuka Ongoza Africa, Artisans of Innovation, British Council, AfriLabs, Save the Children, Innovation Village and others, was officially launched at the inaugural Africa Urban Forum, representing a stride in leveraging the power of Africa’s creative industries to achieve socio-economic growth and enhance continental unity.

Concerned by the effects of urbanisation on the culture and creative industry, the Africa Urban Forum said the creative economy in Africa is a dynamic but under-tapped engine of Gross Domestic Product growth and employment, with enormous potential to drive the continent’s socio-economic transformation.

It was stated that the global impact of cultural and creative industries generates annual revenues of almost $2.3bn (about $7 per person in the United States) and creates nearly 30 million jobs worldwide, with a significant portion of these jobs held by youth aged 15-29, accounting for 3.1 per cent GDP and 6.2 per cent of all employment, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

Founding Director of the Africa Creatives Alliance, Rita Ngenzi, emphasised the critical need for a coordinated effort to build robust cultural and creative industry ecosystems across Africa.

“While we have vibrant pockets of CCI networks and events across the continent, a unified, continent-wide ecosystem remains elusive. The ACA will bridge this gap by drawing on best practices from across Africa, facilitating knowledge transfer, and fostering the collaboration needed to advance Africa’s cultural and creative renaissance,” said Ngenzi in a statement.

Ngenzi added that the launch of the ACA marks a significant step in harnessing the power of Africa’s creative and cultural sectors for development and integration goals.

Founder & Team Lead MoTIV Africa, CK Japheth, said, “The Africa Creative Alliance is a big bet coalition aimed at unlocking the vast potential of Africa’s creative economy. By 2050, one in four people will be African, making our continent a key growth market. With over 70 per cent of the population relying on the informal economy and facing a massive job creation challenge, Africa’s future lies in its untapped human potential.”

The Executive Director of AfriLabs, Anna Ekeledo, posited that the Africa Creatives Alliance is a bold step towards creating a unified ecosystem that will empower creatives across the continent, adding that by connecting hubs, entrepreneurs, and policymakers, Africa’s creative talent will thrive and contribute significantly to the continent’s socio-economic development.

A Culture and Creative Industry expert and Founding Partner, Artisans of Innovation, Johanna Kouzmine-Karavaïeff, maintained that the activation of creative economies should not be rocket science.

“However, it is complex due to several impediments where the perception of a divide between culture and economy creates a huge gap and constitutes the biggest blockage in people’s minds. We need to know our elements, orchestrate them, apply them, and raise awareness. We must master collaboration to get there and liberate ourselves from siloed agendas,” the expert submitted.