05 Sep 2019

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Empowerment, Sport and Culture development says creative industry needs strong advocacy from government to provide opportunities for individual artists to make alliances between the cultural, civic and business communities.

Kago Ramokate was speaking at a two-day conference hosted by SEA Africa BW, an organisation, which seeks to educate, empower and epitomise talent as a business.

SEA Africa BW is also dedicated to the development and growth of the business of entertainment in Botswana.

“Advocacy groups are vital in the sense that they will be strong voice that can assist in progressing and moving the industry forward and increase the presence of creative artists and producers in policy making arenas,” Ramokate said.

He also highlighted that the SEA Africa BW initiative was key to Botswana’s overall mission to promote the economy through deepening ties between creative sector to build sustainability for individual artists and their endeavours.

“We also hope to see more of this initiatives from other players to develop and grow talent, managers, entrepreneurs, business and other role players in the entertainment industry to stay ahead of the dynamic and ever changing industry and to increase the presence of creative artists and producers in policy making arenas,” he said.

For his part multi-talented creative and talent manager from Nigeria and Geobek Entertainment CEO based in South Africa, George Beke said there was room for growth in the Botswana’s creative industry if everyone in the entertainment business was exposed to business proven approaches, trends, market disruptions and other strategic challenges.

“The best way to make it out there, is to stick to the originality of your content do not try to copy anyone. One can also benchmark to people who are already in the industry and ask for help.

Being able to look at yourself and the market objectively, and understand how you fit into the market in order to be able to push yourself forward,” Beke said.

In addition, he said Botswana’s entertainment and creative industry had potential to significantly contribute to the national economic growth, thus taking advantage of such industry developments was vital at this stage.

He added that training, mentorship, affiliation, policies and funding from relevant stakeholders were all necessary to boost the promising industry.

Such, he said had been proven by countries like Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana and South Africa that creative industries can boost the economy.

“Creative minds crave to showcase their ideas but they are challenged by insufficient resources to turn these ideas in to content for the already existing global market.

One might argue that this is not only an issue to be addressed by government, but also an opportunity for Botswana’s business sector to consider in diversifying their investment portfolios,” he said. ENDS