The promise of the African Creative Economy

The African diaspora is experiencing a moment where they are front and center of popular culture, succeeding in the role of tastemaker, influencing trends, raising awareness for social justice, and perhaps most importantly seeing African culture create opportunities for its people,  bringing economic and social development.

This ascendancy in the global market is long in the making and has largely been led by a string of African creatives (leaders) who have used their voices and their art to inspire people across the world through the stories they tell. From the likes of Fela Kuti, Mirriam Makeba, Brenda Fassie, and Angélique Kidjo to Burna Boy, Trevor Noah, John Kani, and Mehret Mandefro, the list goes on.

As a young person born in the early 1990s, my interests always gravitated towards the film industry – writing stories, and participating in high school plays but never did I believe that I could shape a career for myself as a creative. This is largely due to my parents’ belief that a job within the creative industry was not a noble, secure or respected  “profession”, let alone a path that could lead to a successful career.

How wrong they were.

As a product manager at Credipple (a marketplace for creative and digital services), I help young professionals in the creative and digital industry access work opportunities. I have seen the immense talent of young Africans and the passion they have for their creative work. Operating in this industry, I have witnessed the growth of creatives, where South African designers go from charging R 250/hour to R 750/hour in a few short years; actors grow from charging R 2000/day to R 15 000/day; software developers working with small businesses excel and start servicing some of the biggest companies in the world.

Why is it then that those outside creative industries don’t see the industry as a sector that is serious, and professional, offering progressing incomes and upward career opportunities that carry the same prestige as lawyers, accountants, and doctors?

The title of this article aims to be catchy but also shape a contextual understanding of how big the creative economy is. Questions that need answering: how fast is the creative economy growing? Where does it begin and where does it end? Where are the jobs in the sector?  What can it do for us as Africans in regard to sustainable development and wealth creation?

Over the next few months, I will be sharing a series of articles under this title as I look to explore the challenges in the creative economy and what interventions are required to unlock further growth opportunities across the sector.

I hope this series will call on other stakeholders in the sector to share their viewpoints, agree or disagree so we can collectively learn from each other and create new relationships in the sector with the goal to collaborate and build.

What is the promise of the African creative economy?

I expect each of us will have our own answer. I see our people with creativity in abundance inherited like a will from generation to generation but working in an industry that is new and emerging as it moves from being largely informal to formal. 

I believe that the creative economy has the potential to create new jobs, offering improved working conditions, progressive taxation, home financing, and medical insurance for a sector that is predominantly freelance in nature.

My belief is that the creative industry is one where Africans should be leading and shaping our image that is free from colonial incumbents where ownership sits with its people (creators). It should be an industry that participates in the global economy on the basis of merit and excellence. It should be an industry that takes a front seat in creating the future of work and absorbing our fast-growing and young population. 

Whether this will be a broken or fulfilled promise depends largely on how active we are as participants in the next few years in regards to molding industry’s best practices, developing policies, and investing in learning and development.

The next article will cover some introductory groundwork covering definitions and comparisons to establish a scope for the rest of the series.

Written by Kgololo Lekoma