Public Agenda (Accra)
2 November 2009
Accra — The Ministry of Culture and Chieftaincy Affairs, the Ghana Association of Phonographic Industries (GAPI) and the Business Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) Fund have undertaken concrete initiatives that promise better conditions for players in the creative industries soon.
This was contained in a document titled "A Brief Overview of The Medium-Term Development Agenda and The Role of GAPI", which indicated that creative industries world over generates over US$2.2 trillion and some US$200 million in Ghana every year. Unfortunately, very few of the core industry players benefit from the financial benefits.
To create wealth for industry players in the creative industries, therefore, "The Ministry and GAPI have initiated moves to review the National Cultural Policy. The Ministry has again, with funds from BUSAC, instituted firm policy measures that would ultimately create wealth via creative works across the country to give musicians, producers and other players in the creative industries value for money," the document said.
According to Mr. Francis Twum, General Secretary of GAPI, the production and distribution of creative works has assumed new dimensions with the advent of modern technology. He said that GAPI was spearheading the review of the policy to bring it in tune with modern development and engender international investor confidence in the creative arts sector.
Mr. Twum noted that as part of the initiative, GAPI, through the help of BUSAC, was working with some partners in the Norway and Bach Technology and Artpages and had commenced the digitization of music to be monitored online as well as the sale of Ghanaian music on almost major online music stores like Itunes.
Through this initiative also, "GAPI and its Norwegian development partners have also initiated the establishment of a Copyright Investments Bank (CIB) where creative artistes can secure finance by using their International Property Rights (IPR) as collateral over a period of time," he revealed. The establishment of the bank, he noted, would ensure long-term financing for creative industries, something that had been lacking due to lack of proper policy that secures the potential investors.
According to him, the positive development towards better conditions for creative industries had allowed GAPI to be appointed as a strategic partner with the Ministry for the development of a 5-year strategic plan to holistically overhaul the cultural policy to ensure effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation of activities in the industry. To this end, GAPI and the Ministry were also considering a Public Private Partnership (PPP) to help use creative arts as a tool to create jobs and wealth, to alleviate poverty.
A forum had been earmarked for the second week of November this year to give stakeholders such as musicians, producers, government, investors, regulators, and promoters, the opportunity to contribute ideas on how the cultural policy should be reviewed to benefit the entire country.
GAPI is an association of music producers and BUSAC is fund set up by DFID, USAID and DANIDA for business advocacy in Ghana.
GNA
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