to create and raise the standards of our own
content. Wanuri Kahiu, for instance, is the
co-founder of AFROBUBBLEGUM, a
media collective dedicated to supporting
African art.
Safaricom PLC has The Michael Joseph
Center, a space where creatives can hold
showcases and exhibitions for their work.
Alliance Française too is a popular hub
for creative showcases and expression.
Nairobi Garage is popularly known as a
hub for the techies, and ADMI is quickly
solidifying its offering too as a favorable
hub for creatives and techies alike.
And as consumers, we too need to support
our own. We also need to create and get
more and more distribution platforms
for local content. Innovative channels
like Vumi, ViuSasa, Showmax and others
help bring content affordably to a wider
audience.
Once we are able to demonstrate that
local productions and publications can
be easily distributed and accessed by
the wider population and make money,
creatives will be able to raise funding both
as investments and as loans to support the
industry right from resourcing to mental
health care - which is a huge conversation
in the industry at the moment.
Policy-makers also have a big part to play.
African creatives are often sabotaged
in their very own countries, by their
very own governments, from creating
conducive environments that facilitate the
growth of robust creative tech industry,
and for telling stories that are relevant to
our time. Burdensome taxes and licenses,
misguided censorship laws and the high
cost of data all stifle creativity.
Internet access has, in the past few years,
become a focal point for content creation
and access to many. Instead of levying taxes
on internet access as a blanket content
consumption control measure, perhaps
the government should focus on setting
up content restriction checks created by
the very same creative techs that these
measures thwart. In essence, this would
be killing two birds with one stone by
creating employment opportunities and
giving creatives a platform to showcase
their homegrown skills.
We can do better as African nations.
Government funds would be better
spent building infrastructure, creating
opportunities for the growth of creative
technology, creating scholarships and
grants for talented students with a penchant
for the creative arts, protecting the creative
techs by enforcing laws that protect them
and their work, promoting the work of
homegrown creatives by displaying it in
national galleries and incorporating it
in the executing of national functions,
refurbishing public spaces where these
creatives can periodically go express and
showcase their skills in state-of-the-art
facilities that are provided and maintained
by the government.
Such nurturing by national leadership spills
over into creating favorable investment
opportunities since the government has
already expressed the value placed as a
nation on the economic potential of the
creative industry.
The impact will be immediate and the
benefits broad. Whether we want to
believe it or not, the creative industry is
one of the key drivers of economic growth.
Charlene Kamali, writing in the last issue
of Marketing Africa magazine, noted that
the global market from creative goods
doubled from $208 billion in 2002 to $509
billion in 2015, with 90% of the content
consumed in Africa being foreign.
And the opportunity continues to grow.
Sub-Saharan
Africa's
smartphone
penetration stands at 33%, significantly
higher than the 15% recorded in 2014, and
market analysts predict this will double by
2025; therefore the potential for growth
in the creative and tech industry isn’t
imagined.
In a future where Africans are the authors
of their destiny, the relationship between
governments and their citizens should
be quid-pro-quo, where the citizenry
pays taxes that fund economic growth
initiatives, and the government does its
job of investing in sectors, like the creative
and tech hubs, which drive the economy
forward.
The same citizenry too should support its
own creatives wherever they go. Nigerians,
for instance, will always support Nigerian
creatives in whichever corner of the globe
they may be and support them loudly and
proudly.
This is a model that can be adopted across
the continent. Initiatives like Buy Kenyan,
Build Kenya and BUBU (Buy Ugandan,
Build Uganda) are deliberate moves to
support the consumption of homegrown
products that go a long way into funding
the creative and tech industries.
We aren’t so far off from the mark; we just
need to push a little harder and fight a
little longer. The future started yesterday,
and we’re already late.
Nerima Wanyama is a Commercial
Advisor at African Digital Media
Institute (ADMI). You can
commune with her on this or related
issues via mail at: Nerima@
africadigitalmedia.org.