CREATIVE INDUSTRIES DEVELOPMENT

National statistics and the development of creative industries

Despite the growing focus on creative industries as a specialized field of interest for both officials and academics, many governments remain unconvinced of the importance of prioritizing this sector and creative industries still do not rank high in the competition for public funds within government budgets. Progress on mainstreaming creative industries within policy-making is further hampered by an uncertainty as to whether ministries of culture or ministries of economy should take the lead in coordinating government action.

Nevertheless, an increasing number of governments have recognized the importance of creative industries and are developing a growing range of policies at the national and sub-national level to support their growth. In order to do so, statistics are vital to give policy makers a clearer idea of the impact this sector has and precisely how the public sector can create a more conducive environment that will allow these industries to flourish.

Without a standardized international methodology yet available, a mass of detailed though uncoordinated analysis and research has been undertaken in different parts of the world, and certain practices and methodologies have been widely adopted on an ad-hoc basis. Unfortunately little is being done to standardize these methodologies and valuable opportunities are therefore being lost to build a more comprehensive body of regional knowledge that could be used for cross-border comparisons and international policy making on a more coordinated basis.

Cultural mapping has become the flavored approach at national level for governments to study and understand their creative industry sectors before making policy decisions. Mapping, which involves a comprehensive effort to identify all relevant cultural economic activities, organizations’, employment and links in a given area such as a town or region, has the added advantage that the actual mapping process itself can generate substantial awareness and foster

Collaboration across a wide range of creative stakeholders, building momentum that can then influence the political sphere and encourage suitable public policy-making.

The UK is widely recognized as having played a groundbreaking role in developing these analytical models, with the government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport producing the first Cultural Industries Mapping Documents in 1998 and 2001 as part of their efforts to regenerate economically depressed industrial towns and cities. These documents define and classify creative industries into the following thirteen separate fields: (1) advertising, (2) architecture, (3) art and antiques markets, (4) crafts, (5) design, (6) designer fashion, (7) film and video, (8) interactive leisure software, (9) music, (10) performing arts, (11) publishing, (12) software and computer services, (13) television and radio.

This classification system has since been copied in many studies around the world. The British “Creative Industries Production System” (CIPS), which measures creative industry activities, breaking them into four segments including content origination, production, distribution and consumption, has also been widely adopted by other countries including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. As befits the country that took such an early lead in this field the UK even has a dedicated Minister for Creative Industries and Tourism and there now exist hundreds of mappings for different regions and cities, as well as a significant academic field of specialists studying the sector.

Statistics New Zealand has also made a major contribution to the classification of cultural activities by seeking to include the key elements of Maori culture as separate elements of their statistical classification system. UIS is hoping to build on this experience to identify ways in which statistical systems can be more sensitive to cultures of a variety of sub-national and indigenous groups. A Senior Expert Symposium held in Jodhpur, India in February 2005 has given the analysis of creative industries a significant boost in Asia. Organized by UNESCO’s Bangkok office and bringing together the UIS, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), WIPO, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the Symposium approved the Jodhpur Consensus that lays out a common approach to developing a conceptual framework for cultural industries in the region.

BY MDODO REBECCA J

BAPRM-42614