Encouraging more entrepreneurship through UNESCO Conventions
Ghana has the ability to create over one million jobs in manufacturing and services, estimates local entrepreneurial leaders, if policies supporting small businesses are put into practice for the benefit of the creative industries.
Advertisement
Most businesses in the creative industries here in Ghana are burgeoning start-ups. Putting entrepreneurial Ghana into perspective, it must be noted that the country only as recently as 1992, embraced capitalism, therefore, only one generation of us has really lived in a free-market economy. It is only in that time that entrepreneurs, in the right sense of the phenomena, have emerged. Ghana itself is, therefore, very much also in ‘start-up’ mode.
Hopefully, recent news that Ghana’s parliament has finally ratified seven United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) conventions for the protection of the country's cultural heritage, as is a requirement by member states may ensure that this happens.
Expected to give legal protection and strengthen the country's cultural heritage, the ratification of these conventions may not in itself create more jobs, or change anything, until cultural practitioners and professionals of the creative industries themselves demand of the authorities their rights to the protection and promotion they deserve.
But, how does Ghana fare in the global entrepreneurial ecosystem? Recently, Ross Baird, the executive director of Village Capital, a US based venture capital firm, who explored the entrepreneurial ecosystems in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria, says Ghana has assets that can make it globally relevant.
Listing them as the strong assets that are exportable across Africa and the world, they are, 1, the most educated population in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2, an English language background, 3, relative good infrastructure, including a good and functioning port, among others.
Culture and policy both pose big challenges and opportunities in Ghana. While we have a long way to go before we can become comparable to a country like Kenya, where entrepreneurship is encouraged, stepping out and starting your own company in Ghana isn’t. And, ‘whether it’s cultural or whether it’s a vestige of a socialist system that didn’t reward the free market,’ Ross said, one entrepreneur says, “In Ghana, everyone is afraid of getting too big.”
Startup investment is equally difficult to raise for one major reason - bank interest rates are 28%, and it’s very difficult even for an exceptional startup to outperform that. Despite these challenges, Ross says Ghana has several local conditions that make it globally competitive. And, while Ghanaian culture could be a challenge, its creativity and vibrancy, however, have major advantages, and a great edge in cultural leadership.
Other Trending Stories
Many times, international conventions that we are bound to as a country could aid craftsmen and those working in the creative sector in gaining an edge over those in mainstream business, if one knows what is protected and is able to make demands of the authorities with regards to their protection. The UNESCO conventions are one such.
Those recently ratified conventions include one for the ‘safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage’, and that on the ‘protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions’. Also, the convention on the ‘protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict’ with registration for the execution of the convention, as well as the convention on the ‘means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property’.
The rest are the convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage, convention for the protection of phonograms against unauthorized duplication and the UNIDROIT convention on stolen or illegal exported cultural objects.
On the creative and cultural development agenda, these milestones confirm that the ‘creative industries’ is coming of age. Yet, for the sector to fully deploy its potential, it must be given proper recognition and support in trade, investment and business development policies. This is the only way it can maximize its contribution to the development goals of the country and help in poverty alleviation, gender equality and even, environmental sustainability.
These ratifications also mean that Ghana, as a member state of UNESCO, can share information with other countries on best practices, and will be provided technical training in heritage development, and be able to access funds for projects and programmes under the conventions.—GB
.