Report highlights hurdles creatives face in Uganda

A new report on the Culture and Creative Industries (CCIs) in Uganda has found out that the creative economy is handicapped by lack of private sector investment, limited strategic collaborations, limited knowledge and lack of internal sector capacity. 

The report titled Mapping the Current Landscape of the Culture and Creative Industries in Uganda, also discovered that most creative businesses are micro due to lack of financing. The report says that as a result, the donor-model has been the dominant financing model for the selected sectors of this mapping study. 

According to the report released in Kampala on March 14, there are limited strategic collaborations or multi-disciplinary practices to organise creative ideas and innovations to attract financing of large-scale projects that can create jobs for the youth. 
The study also unearthes the fact that lack of entrepreneurial skills has denied CCIs a much-needed paradigm shift to “attract global markets or private sector financing, for example, fair trade for crafts, trade in rights for books and co-productions for film.” 

The report summarises the results of the research commissioned by The British Council, Bayimba Cultural Foundation, Cross-Cultural Foundation Uganda, Kuonyesha Arts Fund, and Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development to map the current landscape of the CCIs in Uganda. 
The study also zooms in on specific post-pandemic shifts and digital-led opportunities with a focus on CCI practitioners between the ages of 18 and 35. It addresses itself to the sub-sectors of fashion, creative technology, film, literature and publishing, music and performing arts and the visual arts and crafts. 

Research findings
Using mainly a qualitative approach, the study was conducted by Culture and Development East Africa (CDEA) in 2023. About 38.5 percent of CCI practitioners are self-employed, while 29.5 percent are fully employed. Most of the Focus Group Discussions (FGD) participants, however, indicated they were either part-time workers or self-employed. As many as 90.9 percent of the survey respondents and the FGD participants indicated that there is no minimum wage/minimum remuneration for the creative occupations. 

“There are very few emerging or existing organisations with strong implementation capacity that can offer both creative or technical and business support training, incubation or acceleration of creative enterprises,” the report shows, adding, “informality characterises the CCIs in Uganda, which contributes to the stunted growth of their enterprises. For the music sector, there is a lack of a distinct sound coming out of Uganda that can position it on the African or global map.
Deficits
The limited public support for the CCis is skewed towards the film sector, the report observes. It also spotlights a lack of holistic value chain capacity development that leads to weak links in the sector value chains. 

Besides the limited working capital infrastructure to support the sector, the report also illuminates the absence of a basket fund from various development partners. “The study comes at a time when there is much needed data on creative industry to inform policy and stakeholders on sectoral needs and opportunities,” says Rasheeda Nalumoso, the regional programme manager, Creative Economy at the British Council.
She says the report will provide building ground for more such needed research to help unlock Uganda’s creative potential. 

Recommendations
The study recommends SME support for the fashion businesses so that they can qualify to attract commercial financing for their fashion brands. 
For the creative technology industry, the report suggests investment in tech hubs that work at the intersection of arts, science and technology. 
It also recommends production consortiums for the film industry, where producers work in consortiums at national or regional level to raise co-productions, financing of a minimum budget of Shs8 billion. 

It calls for trade in rights for the literature and publishing industry through establishing an African hub for African publishers that enables them to sell rights.
The literature and publishing industry should work with corporate companies to support a well-established literary prize that can also enable a manuscript to find a reputable publisher.

For the music and performance arts cluster there should be investment in equipment and venues that accommodate various forms of entertainment, for example, amphitheaters, and arenas. 
For the visual arts and crafts sub-sector it recommends capacity building in curatorial practice that will attract a domestic market for the visual arts. 
It also calls for branding community crafts under the fair-trade label.

 Target areas 
The report also makes recommendations for target areas that will enable a high impact on the creative enterprise environment. For the fashion industry it calls for the provision of business skills development education and financing for high fashion brands’ business plans. 
The report suggests that for the creative technology sub-sector Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools can be used to assist artists and designers in image editing, and other non-creative tasks to improve efficiency. 
The film industry should provide training to script writers, actors and directors, as well support crew, as well provision of production financing support. 

For the literature and publishing sub-sector there should be the professionalisation of the self-publishing model by training the authors who have chosen to become publishers on the publishing process. 
It recommends that the performing arts industry should tap into the musical and dance heritage of Uganda to identify a unique sound and rhythm.