CASE STUDIES FROM AFRICA

Ministers of Culture to endorse the draft Charter for African Cultural Renaissance (December
2005 in Nairobi, Kenya), the government of Burkina Faso adopted in October 2009 the National
Cultural Policy (NCP) based on two main dimensions:
The protection and promotion of heritage and cultural diversity
The structuring and development of the cultural and creative industries.
Within the framework of four main strategic objectives, the National Cultural Policy also takes
into account the aims of other development strategies such as the national communication
policy for development, the national tourism policy, the national policy for youth and
employment, and the national environmental policy. These four objectives are:
(a) Preserving cultural diversity to promote and strengthen social cohesion
(b) Strengthening the institutional capacity of the cultural sector
(c) Structuring and developing the economy of culture
(d) Strengthening cultural cooperation and supporting the external diffusion of Burkinabe
cultural products and services.
This period coincided with the rise in the budget of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. In
2010, the ministry had a budget of 7.6 billion CFAF (€11.6 million) against 3.7 billion CFAF in
2007. 28 The ambition to support the cultural sector was reaffirmed in SCADD, adopted in 2010,
in which the cultural sector received the core mission to develop cultural industries in order to
increase their contribution to economic and social development. It is worth repeating that in the
SCADD, the primary focus on future action of the cultural industries is on tourism, while the
need for focus on entrepreneurship and funding mechanisms is mentioned as well. 29
Currently, several technical and financial partners have decided to engage in facilitating the
implementation of these cultural policies. With the support of the OIF, the government has set
up a Support Programme to strengthen political and cultural industries (ARPIC) for the period
2012–2015, which took over the ARPEM, which was implemented by the association “Culture et
Développement” and was funded by the ACP-UE, 2009–2011. A first seminar on managing,
financing, and developing cultural industries, co-organised by the OIF and the Ministry of
Culture and Tourism, was held in Ouagadougou in October 2012, attended by the leading
professional cultural organisations. It appears from this workshop and a feasibility study on a
mechanism for funding and supporting cultural enterprises, that the cultural environment is
under-estimated and requires a better understanding by the financial institutions.
In December 2013, the government of Burkina Faso, through the Ministry of Culture and
Tourism, presented its National Strategy for the Development of Cultural and Creative
Industries (SNDICC) as a main instrument for operationalising the last two axes of the National
Cultural Policy. It includes the creation of an inter-ministerial committee responsible for
reflection on the development of the cultural and creative industries. By taking into account the
28
Since then, communication has been taken out of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and the budget of the
ministry is now claimed to be around CFAF 2 billion.
29
SCADD (2010), p. 46.
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