Arts and Culture Strategy Summit
21 November 2006
Programme Director
Members of the Executive Council
Members of the District Council
Honoured guests
Ladies and gentlemen
"Age of hope through Arts and Culture towards 2010 and beyond"
The World Cup is upon us. This Summit is but one of the marked efforts that
indicate our seriousness about the planning and preparations for the 2010 World
Cup event. Through it we seek to develop a strategy to ensure that the cultural
institutions of the province such as libraries and archives, museums and
heritage sites, arts centres and hubs are strategically positioned and
sensitive to ensure that the communities of the Eastern Cape benefit from the
2010 World Cup. To that extent, we need to develop a strategy for resource
mobilisation to ensure that funds are available for implementation of projects,
and that we repackage information for all levels of literacy so that all our
people access the economic benefits from all corners of the province.
With the poor and the rural community in mind we will have to develop a
drastic transformation agenda in order to ensure a bigger public involvement
through the arts and culture programme. However, there are three key questions
that we need to answer in our strategies, which are:
* how to reach the people and their inner soul so that people come out to
exhibit their wares
* ensuring South Africans are part of the legacy
* how we get buy in from role players?
Cultural industries
The cultural industries strategy needs to be reviewed and refined around
efficiency in product development and product packaging to ensure that it opens
opportunities for economic benefits for artists in the following areas:
* performing arts
* visual arts
* heritage
* crafts
* museums
* books and publishing.
There is a need to develop quality assurance in our products so that
tourists who buy any of our artefacts are able to take it back home without it
breaking in half long before they arrive back home.
Marketing strategy
It is the view of the government that the intervention in the area of arts
and culture product development has yielded good results; the products from the
province of the Eastern Cape can compete successfully at an international
level. However, there is a need to aggravate market access, training and skills
transfer to enhance sustainability and global exposure.
We need to have a marketing strategy for our cultural industries in the form
of summits, workshops, brochures and websites. Some of the marketing
interventions could be:
* dissemination of information through local radio stations, print media
etc
* market driven: business focused approach
* retails and enterprise development
* create networking platforms of local artists with libraries, resource centres
and multi purpose centres
* to create distribution channels and market access
* mass participation, audience development, domestic and global mass
consumption
Infrastructure development strategy
The province faces a serious challenge of infrastructure backlogs while even
the existing facilities need either renovations or refurbishment because of
their poor state; they need to be made user-friendly and accessible to
everybody including disabled persons.
Conclusion
This is an acid test for our claim that "we will not abandon the poor." Let
the strategy we are going to develop here clearly indicate that 2010 is for all
the people.
I thank you for your time and attention.
Issued by: Eastern Cape Provincial Government
21 November 2006
Source: Eastern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.ecprov.gov.za)
