The African continent is home to approximately 1.3 billion people and by the end of the century that number is expected to jump to 4.2bn. The continent will probably overtake Asia and be home to the world’s largest labour force as early as 2040.
Young people between 18 and 35 years of age will make up as much as 60% of this number. Currently, Africa’s unemployment rate is well above the global average and close to 70% of Africans are working low paying jobs and living within or below the poverty line.
African governments have the huge responsibility of tackling unemployment and creating millions of new jobs to stem the growing tide of instability and advance prosperity. Doing this will require thinking outside of the box and going beyond the traditional means of natural resources, manufacturing or trading.
This is where Africa’s creative industries come in. In 2014, when Nigeria rebased its economy, its film industry alone (Nollywood) accounted for 1.3% of the nation’s GDP (which stood then at $510 billion). Considering that Nigeria’s annual budget is usually around $15-20 billion, an industry accounting for $5 billion of GDP is a huge deal breaker. While the recession of 2016 hurt most other sectors badly, the creative industries witnessed impressive growth with Nollywood film production generating between $500 and $800 million annually in the past three years.
Africa’s creative industry encompassing design, fashion, film, television, photography, radio, dance, music and literature is enormous and still growing. Unfortunately, while the continent has a deep pool of talent, it lacks the infrastructure and capacity to commercialise the sector and reap the vast fortunes waiting to be explored. With revenues of US$2.250 trillion, creative industries account for 3 percent of world GDP and employ 29.5-million people, or about 1 percent of the world’s active population. A report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) states that Africa’s share of this stands at less than 1%. The potential for growth is therefore widely available.
The creative industries hold great potential for developing countries that seek to diversify their economies and leapfrog into one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy. But a lot of work needs to be done in terms of institutional and regulatory framework.
Just as some African countries place a strong emphasis on agriculture and industrialisation in their national development plans in order to move away from the natural resource curse, deliberate efforts must be made to ensure that the creative industries in African countries are included in such plans to ensure the sector has a strong support system and becomes an important part of creating more diverse and economically viable markets. Managed properly the sector can become a key driver of job creation, income generation and foreign exchange earnings. In addition, the creative industries can become key catalysts of other service sectors such as transport, printing, tourism and hospitality.
Going forward, African governments have a key role in designing, implementing and monitoring robust institutional and regulatory policies that will commercialise and support creative forces.
Apart from their importance economically, the creative industries are also key bearers of cultural traditions, moral values, worldviews, ideological assumptions and ideas and can be used by African countries to propagate values and ideas to their citizens and the rest of the world.
By virtue of its underinvestment in the creative industries, Africa is largely absent in the global market of ideas, values and aesthetics as conveyed by music, theatre, literature, film and television. For Africa to stake its place in the global arena of ideas and aesthetics, and to increase its market share in the world’s creative economy, there will need to be greater vision and political will on the part of both government and the private sector to invest in all aspects of the value chain: education, creation, production, distribution and consumption.
This article was written with background information from
1. The African Business Magazine – January 2014 Edition
2. The London Financial Times – March 2018 Edition
3. The World Economic Forum Agenda – September 2015
