Creative sector ‘can fuel the economy, create jobs’

With the services sector now contributing more than 40% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), there is little doubt we have moved from our traditional mining and manufacturing economy to a knowledge-based service economy.

And the creative industry is arguably chock-full of the potential to create the jobs South Africa so desperately needs.

Despite promises of jobs in successive State of the Nation addresses for the past two decades, unemployment remains stubbornly high at 29.1% in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to data from Statistics South Africa.

According to Global Project Culture and Creative Industries (CCI), the overlooked creative sector could be the country’s sleeping economic giant with massive potential for sustainable economic development.

The organisation’s advisor to SA, Victoria Kathleen Gillian, said other than job creation, the industry was also as a sector to provide change impetus for societal and cultural development.

“Creative industries today contribute 1.7% of the GDP, growing faster than the overall economy at 4.8% per year. Additionally, creative industries enable collaboration between various sectors, the creation of alternative African narratives and their implementation into various industries,” she said.

This is why the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) has embarked on its aggressive Global Business Accelerator (GBA), an incubation and mentoring programme focusing on the creative sector.

The programme was piloted for six months last year with funding from the German Cooperation. It has resulted in the introduction of dozens of local creative entrepreneurs, from fashion designers, hand crafters, jewellers and gaming producers, animators to tea and craft vodka producers and story tellers to the global market.

After the success of the pilot phase, which had 30 participants, through its partners the German Cooperation provided funding for a full roll out, with the funding expanded for another three years.

Participants are brought together for a year and then equipped with financial management and selling skills as well as identifying new markets before they are taught basic and intermediary export training.

This includes export documentation, intercontinental terms, insurance (marine and credit), agents and distributors, customs requirements, pricing, financing and payments.

Speaking on the sidelines of the graduation ceremony of the programme’s 2019 creative cohort in Rosebank this week, Jacki Mpondo-Hendricks, JCCI president, said the programme was her pet project.

She said the programme was close to her heart because the creative industry did not only speak to the transformational agenda but that for her it goes deeper.

“I always say transformation must start from the mind and what excites me is that the creative industry begins to set a tone that will inform a positive narrative of South Africans and Africans at large. It speaks to a positive identity, a pride of who we are, challenging us to become part of the global environment, not as copycats but as authentic Africans,” Mpondo-Hendricks said.

She said due to the fact that the creative sector in Gauteng contributed 40% to the GDP, there was no doubt it had potential but that the futuristic part of it was evolving quickly, with gaming and animation providing a whole new breed of new opportunities.

The industry has also shown that it is ripe for embracing by the youth.

“We have specific issues of the high rate of unemployment, so if we engage them about a sector that resonates with them then I am certain that within a year we would have made a significant, quantifiable impact,” Mpondo-Hendricks said.

Tema Dolamo, a gamification applications production entrepreneur from Soweto, joined the GBA programme last year.

He said it was the best practical training and incubation he had gone through and that the best part was the global opportunities for creatives like himself. Dolamo’s company, 22 Degrees Halo, specialises in gamification, streaming and augmented reality.

– siphom@citizen.co.za

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