P40 million sponsorship for creative festival too little

Tumiso Rakgare, the Minister of Youth Sports and Culture has called on government to increase funds for the annual creative arts as the P40 million disbursed for the just-ended competitions was not enough.

Rakgare made the appeal Tuesday afternoon during the finals of the 2023 creative festival, whose theme was, 'The Creative Economy: Botswana's Economic Future Redefined,' at GICC. His appeal could easily be interpreted as a way of endorsing what African Ministers responsible for Creative arts and culture agreed on at their fourth African Union Specialised Conference on Youth, Culture and Sport (STC-YCS4) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia two months ago.

The meeting which coincided with the AU’s 60-years celebrations was conducted under the theme, 'AU at 60: Unlocking and Scaling Innovation for AfCFTA Implementation through Youth, Culture and Sports.'

During the AU meeting, ministers approved the Revised AU Plan of Action on Cultural and Creative Industries and requested the AUC to popularise the revised plan and advocate for its implementation by Member States.

Member States were called to monitor the implementation of the Revised AU Plan of Action on Cultural and Creative Industries using its monitoring tool after the first 10 years of implementation, as well as encouraged to fast track the process of implementation of Assembly Decision AU/Dec.772 on the allocation of one percent of national budgets to the arts, culture heritage and creative industries sectors by 2030.

On Tuesday Rakgare said these festivities are not an exercise in futility, but a dedication to the nation's spirit of culture, identity, diversity, harmony, togetherness and creativity. This is the reason so much time and other resources are dedicated to the festival, which also brings together both the young and old. “We had set aside P40 million for this year's festival and next year we are doing more!'

He appealed to Acting President Slumber Tsogwane that they strongly believe that for Botswana's economy to be on a new path, the creative industries and the creative economy must be a large part of how it is expressed, both in definition and in practice.

'We have a duty to grow this industry and when I say we I mean all of us, all the industry players not government alone. The business community, the media, arts associations, BEPA, BOMU, COSBOTS, the Academia and artists, we all have a role to play in our quest to redefine the economic outlook of our beautiful nation”.

The Arts Festival is a critical addition to the national calendar in that it brings to focus, the spectacle that is the diversity of arts and creativity of the nation. It is during this time that festivities crisscross the nation taking all different forms, shapes and sizes - music, dance, theatre and drama, poetry and song, fashion, ideography, food and others, Rakgare said.

The awards ceremony was a culmination of competitions that started in May. The competitions usually start with eliminations at local level throughout the Districts. They then proceed to the next level being regions, followed by the National level at which then the best of the best, are selected to be presented on this stage this afternoon.

In the past all finals were conducted in Gaborone, but the ministry has since changed. For example, this year, fashion, dressmaking, modelling took place in Palapye. Dikhwaere, traditional song and dance as well as Choral were hosted in Mogoditshane. Contemporary Music on the other hand was held in Francistown, Polka and Namastaap in Kang, while Art, Basket and Craft Exhibition in Gaborone.

Rakgare said the creative sector is growing in leaps and bounds globally largely in part due to digitalisation of goods, products and services.

'This we are all aware of, and yet Botswana seems to be falling behind in harnessing the digital space to reshape our business models, change approaches to doing business as well as monetise our craft,' he said.

The other challenge faced by locals is 'how do they use global digital platforms and receive fair and shared value as creators of works'.

'This question must also bother us generally as Batswana to ask ourselves if indeed it is not yet time to harness youth intellectual presence in our country to create our own platforms. Digitalisation as part of the Reset Agenda is proposed in this spirit and is something we must adopt in our sector just like it is the case in other sectors of the economy.'