Harnessing our creative sector

Sunday, February 05, 2012

The following is an extract from a recent address by Clyde McKenzie to a meeting of regional meeting of ministers in South America.

INCREASINGLY, the argument that traditional sources of revenue generation have proven inadequate for the developmental imperatives of the Caribbean region and its people, is becoming more persuasive.

Yet, despite well-sounding pronouncements from representatives of the public and traditional private sectors on the need to secure new modalities, we are still wedded to old developmental orthodoxies.

How can a region so versed in the business of cultural production be deemed poor and underdeveloped?

Our mission should be to create value through the cultural industries. Studies conducted by UNCTAD, UNDP, the Commonwealth Secretariat , WIPO and a host of other agencies have all pointed to the fact that the cultural and creative sectors are the most potentially lucrative sectors of both developed and developing economies. Yet the Caribbean, which many would contend has a comparative advantage in this area, is still not awake to this reality.

There is no reason why a region which can produce a Bob Marley, an Eddie Grant, a Rihanna, a Shaggy, Nicky Minaj, Sparrow, Beenie Man, and Ernie Ranglin, should be classified as underdeveloped. It defies logic that a people able to boast Walcott, Naipaul, Nello James, Nettleford, Peter Minshall among its nationals should be still fidgeting with ideas about how to optimise the benefits from our cultural diversity and fertility.

For too long we in the Caribbean have been primary producers. We produce the bauxite while others engage in the more profitable phase of its refinement. We create the music while others participate in the more lucrative stage of its distribution and marketing. We need a paradigm shift. We need to control more of the lucrative segments of the value chain made possible by cultural production. This can only be achieved by greater levels of indigenous investments in the business of culture. It will also demand higher levels of training.

We need to identify diasporic capital which is more patient and less prone to flight. I call that indigenous foreign direct investments, an oxymoron I will agree. Yet the Chinese and the Indians have been able to finance their economic booms largely through the investments of their diasporic communities. The Caribbean diaspora is relatively large and blessed with significant financial resources. We need to be mobilising this group of Caribbean nationals to invest in a more structured manner in the region .

In 2006 at a diasporic conference in Kingston, I suggested then that we should launch a cultural development fund among our diasporic communities.

This would provide members of the diaspora with an opportunity to invest in the region without having to relocate to run a business. It is the best of all worlds. Another important aspect of this investment paradigm will be our ability to arm ourselves with the current methods of intellectual property valuation. The fact is that we can unlock vast amounts of wealth if holders of intellectual property can collateralize and securitize their assets. However, those in the financial sectors will have to be able to place a value on these intellectual property assets.

We will have to invest in greater levels of training to increase the absorptive capacities of our economies. As a result of this training deficit, our economies are like sieves as we have to spend so much outside our shores to pay for skills we do not reside here. This must change.

cpamckenzie@gmail.com

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Harnessing our creative sector