Barbara Oteng Gyasi
Members of Parliament (MPs) have given their backing to the Creative Arts Industry Bill 2020, which is intended to establish a Creative Arts Agency to provide the institutional framework for the development and management of the creative arts industry.
The legislation, which passed through the House by a unanimous voice vote, seeks to operationalise the quasi-self-regulatory governance policy.
The government said the policy would allow players in the creative arts industry, through an established Creative Arts Board, to participate in the development of policies, plans and programmes to regulate their operations.
The United Nations Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has emphasised the “creative economy” in the world economic and development agenda as an emergent competitive sector.
The creative economy emphasises the interface between creativity, culture, socio-economics and technology in the traditional and contemporary world dominated by creative arts such as images, sounds, texts and symbols.
The government stated that creative economy related industries are among the most dynamic activities in the world economy, providing new opportunities for revenue generation, job creation and contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The UNCTAD, in its Creative Economy Report 2010, highlighted that “adequately nurtured, creativity fuels culture, infuses a human-centered development and constitutes the key ingredient for job creation, innovation and trade while contributing to social inclusion, cultural diversity and environmental sustainability.”
Consequently, the government has recognised the contribution of the creative arts industry to the national economy by establishing the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MoTAC) by the Civil Service (Ministries) Instrument, 2017 (E. I. 28). The creation of this ministry necessitated developing a policy for the regulation of the creative arts industry since there were already existing policy documents for the regulation of tourism and culture.
The government in its memorandum said the regulation of the creative arts industry in its present stage was bedeviled with challenges.
“These include fragmentation of the creative arts practitioners, lack of adequate data on the creative arts practitioners and their contribution to the economic development of the country and identification of cross-sectorial challenges that militate against creative initiatives,” it noted.
To address these challenges, a committee was tasked to develop an initial policy for the regulation of the creative arts industry, the government’s memorandum indicated and added that the committee proposed a quasi-self-regulatory governance policy framework for the regulation of the industry.
According to the government, this governance framework forms the basis of the draft Creative Arts Industry Bill, which has been subjected to stakeholder scrutiny through ten regional workshops organised across the country to present the draft bill to practitioners in the creative arts industry and stakeholders, and to solicit their views on the provisions of the bill from a more practical perspective.
The feedback from the regional consultations, where appropriate, was incorporated in the draft bill to enrich the provisions.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House