ated for a specific purpose; they may cover many or a few industries; and they may contribute to development in a particular geographical location, as in the many creative-industry parks established in recent years in cities such as Barcelona, Spain, Rosario, Argentina and Shanghai, China.
Policy strategies for the creative industries
8
The promotion of cluster development has proved to be an efficient way of organizing the creative industries and the non-formal sector. Cluster development contributes to the creation of synergy both within and between different sub-sectors of the creative industries. It also contributes to the identification of needs of the sector and areas for policy development, and helps to justify relatively large investments that focus on the drivers (the infrastructure) needed to create the necessary enabling environment for the promotion of growth in the creative-industry sector.
8.4.7 Stimulating creative entrepreneurship
The management of creative businesses requires specific skills in both the entrepreneurial and the artistic or cultural aspects of the business operation. In developing countries, skill-development programmes and vocational training courses can address these difficulties, but progress tends to be slow. Often, there is lack of understanding of the value chain in the creative industries and the roles and responsibilities of the players at each stage of the value chain. For instance, African artists who have successfully penetrated World Music and who have been recorded locally need intermediaries to distribute their work internationally, so the commercial value of their success is usually not retained within their countries. This lack of understanding extends not only to role-players within the industry but to the industry and government, where commercial goals and objectives of cultural policy collide over the purpose of the support and where role-players see themselves in competition with one another. In enhancing capacities of creative entrepreneurs, sup-
port should also be extended to enable small and mediumsized enterprises to become vibrant and contribute to the economy. Indeed, providing capacity-building and adequate training and exposure to creatives can have a multiplying effect on creativity. Issues such as the preparation of sound commercial business plans and the submission of applications to a micro-financing facility or commercial bank could be decisive for many potentially successful creative projects.
8.4.8 Institution of effective data-collection measures
The issue of the necessity of reliable statistics is everpresent in all reports and discussions about the creative industries and the creative economy. It is almost redundant to say that effective and useful data collection is necessary and an imperative for any type of assessment and policy formulation. The problem of a lack of quantitative and qualitative data for the creative industries is a key impediment for informed policymaking. This report stresses the need for the adoption of a methodology for the collection and analysis of universally comparable and reliable data on creative industries that mapping studies rarely meet. The creative industries in the South operate mainly in the informal sector, where the terrain is usually uncharted and the infrastructure of the industries remains opaque. There is no doubt that targeted investment and policy can go a long way in realizing the growth potential of the creative industries, but unless the economic value of these industries can be benchmarked and measured, few concrete policy steps can be taken towards this goal. All countries, but in particular the developing ones, should collect reliable and consistent data on the creative economy in order to formulate a comprehensive strategy and allocate resources to develop the sector. An initial effort to identify what data is collected, both quantitative and qualitative, would give policymakers a useful overview.
8.5 A creative nexus for enhancing the creative economy Despite encouraging prospects for the growth of the creative economy in the developing world, there are problems. Many opportunities for value creation, employment expansion, technological upgrading and market development in the creative sector have gone unrealized. As described above, 224
C R E AT I V E E C O N O M Y R E P O R T 2 0 1 0
developing countries face huge obstacles, such as lack of investment and entrepreneurial skills, inadequate infrastructure, absence of appropriate financing mechanisms and weak institutional and legal frameworks to support the growth of the creative industries. As a result, access by Southern coun-