By Henry Akubuiro
In November 2020, the United Nations adopted resolution A/RES/74/198, which declared 2021 the “International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development” after it was tabled by Indonesia and backed by 81 countries.
The creative economy comprises knowledge-based economic activities, which include arts and crafts, film, video, design, book and newspaper publishing, music, photography, performing arts, advertising, architecture, research and development, software, computer games, electronic publishing and TV/radio.
The Covid-19 pandemic that hit the world in 2020 caught humanity unprepared, leading to months of lockdowns. Some parts of the creative industries were among the worst hit, especially those that thrived on outdoor performances. But the pandemic, which shut down traditional areas of life, was also good news for the creative economy, for many people busied themselves reading and writing books, took up craft, watched digital concerts and movies, shopped online for fashion trends, etcetera.
Explaining the adoption of the resolution on the creative economy and sustainable development, the UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) Deputy Secretary-General, Isabelle Durant, said: “The creative industries are critical to the sustainable development agenda. They stimulate innovation and diversification and are an important factor in the burgeoning services sector, support entrepreneurship, and contribute to cultural diversity.”
It can’t be gainsaid that the creative and cultural industries have played significant roles in mediating the digital transformation happening worldwide, especially since the pandemic pushed the world online.
The head of UNCTAD’s creative economy programme, Ms Henderson, echoed after the passage of the resolution: “But more than ever, we need creative thinking, innovation and problem-solving to imagine ourselves out of the challenges of inequality and vulnerability that we face daily. The creative industries, the lifeblood of the creative economy, are well placed to help.”
That UN resolution was a recognition of the potential of the creative economy to support developing countries and countries in diversifying production and exports and to deliver sustainable development in an inclusive and equitable manner.
The creative industries, from available statistics, employ more than 30 million people worldwide, majority of whom are young people. In 2020 alone, the global film industry lost $7 billion in revenues due to the impact of the pandemic and 30 percent of global royalties were lost. It was the first time in 15 years that the creative industries were recording such huge losses, for, previously, trade in creative goods and services had often outpaced other industries, according to a UNCTAD study.
At the moment, the creative economy accounts for about three percent of global GDP, according to a 2015 study by EU, a professional services firm. In 2017, the creative industries in the UK contributed about £101.5 billion to the country’s economy, while in the developing country of Indonesia, the creative economy contributes 7.4% to the nation’s GDP and employs 14.3% of its workforce, who engage in crafts, gaming, fashion, furniture, and others. No doubt, the industries’ commercial value outweighs their commercial returns.
As we have seen more recently, digital platforms seamlessly connect artists, writers, musicians, artisans, filmmakers with a global audience, thus driving growth in emerging economies.
Individually, African artists have benefited tremendously through streaming and online purchases (for instance, Wizkid’s duet with Tems “Essence” attained a platinum status in the US and UK in 2021.
As developing African nations, like Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya (the hub of the continent’s creativity), generate and sell creative products, including books, music, films, art, fashion, cultural crafts, and computer games and apps, they contribute, in return, to their country’s gross domestic products, exports, and growth, thereby boosting development outcomes.
From the massive gains recorded from the transnationalisation of Nollywood, Africa’s leading film industry, in the 1990s, which saw its movies spread all over the world and ranking it third in global movie productions, behind Hollywood and Bollywood, the Nigerian music industry, especially Afrobeats, has grown in leaps and bounds in the last 10 years with the creation of digital platforms.
Phiona Okumu, Spotify’s Head of Music for Sub Saharan Africa, said in a recent media interview that African music had reached a global audience more than ever before, with artists signing with leading music labels.
According to the World Bank, revenue from digital music streaming in Africa is expected to reach $500 million by 2025, up from $100 million in 2017. At the moment, music streaming accounts for more than half the revenue of the global music industry. Interestingly, online video subscriptions worldwide hit 1.1 billion in 2020, which is a 26 percent rise from 2019.
It has been projected that the creative economy will reach a global valuation of $985 billion by 2023 and might represent 10 percent of global GDP before 2030 (G20 Insights).
African folktales as a billion dollar enterprise
Writing in Folklore and History: The Twin Rivers of World Heritage (2013), Bukar Usman, Nigeria’s foremost promoter of folklore, notes that, on the vast continent of Africa and other continents, before now, folktales and myths served as a means of transmitting traditions and customs from one generation to the next. Besides its educative value, folktales have served as a vehicle for entertainment during moonlight outings. It has continued to be disseminated scribally.
“In Africa, especially the storytelling tradition that was used to prepare young people for life, has continued to thrive over the ages. Just as the oral tradition was dying against the advent of other forms of communication, the invention of the printing press fortunately facilitated their production in a written form and their preservation and circulation on a wider scale,” says Usman.
Dr. Usman has produced dozens of books on folklore in Hausa and English languages, most of which are products of his personal research. In the first two years he researched on folktales in his hometown of Biu in Borno State, which has less than a million people, he collected over 1000 folktales.
Like what obtains in other Nigerian and African folktales, Usman’s slightly modified folktales (for example, in Girls in Search of Husbands and The Bride without Scars) teem with morals, ranging from comic, tragic, tragi-comic, horror to terror.
The characters are imbued with diverse qualities: some exhibit wisdom, cleverness, bravery, strength, and nobility. Others exhibit cruel, foolish, cruel, selfish, cunning and sluggish characters.
“The clash of the contradictory qualities of the characters in a folktale is geared towards moulding the character of the child during his or her early education in the informal setting,” says Usman.
Dr. Usman isn’t limited to researching and publishing folktales from his native Biu. Through the Bukar Usman Foundation, which he founded, he embarked on Pan-Nigerian Folktale Narrative Research Projects from 2013 to 2016, which aims, among others, to collect and preserve in writing, the folktales of various Nigerian ethnic groups as the age-old tradition of transmitting and preserving such tales from generation to generation through oral narration is fast disappearing.
A total of 15 projects, were, thus, sponsored by the Bukar Usman Foundation, including Research in Yoruba Folk Narrative, Research in Hausa Folk Narrative, Research in Terra and Fulfulde Folk Narrative, Research in Igbo Folk Narrative, Research in South-South Folk Narrative, Research in Sayawa and Jawaya Folk Narrative, etcetera. Out of these projects emerged voluminous books such as A Treasure of Nigerian Tales, A Selection of Nigerian Folktales: Themes and Settings, Gods and Ancestors: Mythic Tales of Nigeria, and others.
Despite the groundbreaking achievements of the Bukar Usman Foundation in documenting thousands of Nigerian folktales, he recognises the need for consolidation. Dr Usman, who is the President of NFS (Nigerian Folklore Society), echoes:
“It is necessary to consolidate achievements made, and one way of doing this could be done is to dig into the past, preserve and pass on the findings to the generations to come. Archeologists and social scientists are doing so. Mankind is currently making some breakthrough in technology which in future will be subject of study as to how we reached this far.”
Given the dearth of reading materials for children based on familiar environments, he says, “The tales collected and many more should be further processed into drama, movies, animations and cartoons for education and entertainment purposes, using modern technology and the new media which currently engage the rapt attention of children.”
Dr. Usman will turn 80 by December 2022, but he has already set the tone for the creative industries in Nigeria to explore, years before the United Nations adopted the resolution on the creative economy and sustainable development.
If well produced in movies, cartoons and animations, our folktales have the potential to reach a global audience like our literature, music and films have done. What Bollywood, the India film industry, has achieved virtually is a pointer to the many possibilities of a third world country impacting the global creative economy.
Bollywood has overtaken Hollywood as the world’s largest producer of films. In 2020, it was valued at about $2.5 billion, with video streaming contributing to the unprecedented expansion. Nollywood, Nigeria’s film industry, is one of the fastest-growing creative industries in the world, with the potential to become the country’s greatest export, just like Bollywood. PwC has cited a compound annual growth rate of 19.3 percent from 2018 to 2023, and Nollywood is currently regarded as the largest private employer in Africa.
For the first time, G20 leaders have recognised culture and creative industries as drivers for sustainable development and in fostering economic resilience, with their ministers of culture recommending cultural heritage and the creative sector among post-pandemic recovery strategies.
With digital sales being the dominant way of international trade post-pandemic, investors in folktale animation, cartoons and movies will have little to worry, as Netflix has demonstrated recently in terms of returns.
But financial institutions and corporate bodies have a big role to play here. In Jamaica, a World Bank project helps in training young Jamaicans in digital technology to support animation start-ups, as well as tech entrepreneurship, while, in Latin America, IDB’s Orange Innovation Challenge has provided grants for business models that enhance creative and cultural activities with economic and social impact.
Exporting our folktales has many advantages. “One of the most enduring qualities of folktales is their social relevance. Folktales convey and stabilise social values such as respect for constituted authority, respect for spiritual ordinances, hard work, good neighbourliness, honesty, patience, courage, moderation, and love for one’s family and kindred,” says Usman.
Mixed with new media, the Nigerian creative industries will be bursting at the seams with this unique folkloric export, especially with thousands of storylines to explore.
