RURAL Development Promotion and Preservation of National Culture and Heritage permanent secretary, Thokozile Chitepo, on Tuesday said her ministry would use the cultural statistics and data they were compiling to establish how the arts, culture and heritage sectors could be used to contribute to economic development.
BY PRECIOUS CHIDA
Speaking at an executive breakfast forum organised by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) Regional Office of Southern Africa (ROSA), Chitepo said the data compiled would also help in planning, managing and measuring the economic contribution of specific cultural domains like arts and crafts, product design, film, television and radio.
“The statistical data threw light into what the arts, culture and heritage can do to the economy when we understand our cultural domains individually and when they are aggregated,” she said.
“Data and statistics are needed to plan, manage and measure the economic contribution of specific cultural sectors.”
Chitepo said examining the cultural sectors can be a game changer that the ministry required, as part of the recognition of creative culture industries as the main drivers of the country’s cultural economy.
Unesco regional director, Hubert Gijzen, said efforts to improve cultural statistics were critical because the creative and culture industry had huge potential for employment creation and the realisation of income by the country’s artistically-inclined young people.
“Our efforts to develop culture statistics are essentially about the future of the boys and girls in this country because culture is not only about identity, social cohesion and diversity, but it is also about productive employment, income and decent work for young people,” he said.
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The project is set to enable Zimbabwe to collect and continuously capture national cultural statistics to help in the pegging of baselines for sustainable management and development of the arts, culture and heritage domains in the country.
