Presse release
N°: 231/2011
21 November 2011 [Abuja - Nigeria]

ECOWAS Member States have been urged to develop the region's creative
Cultural industries for greater economic gains towards improving the
living standards of the people.

Addressing the opening of a four-day Culture Experts meeting at the
ECOWAS Commission Headquarters in Abuja on Monday, 21st November 2011,
the Commissioner for Gender and Human Development, Dr. Adrienne Diop,
predicted that the culture sector would soon become the "engine room
for developmental programmes," and the cutting edge of regional
cohesion and sustainable economic development.

She therefore charged the meeting, themed "Cultural Industries and
Development," and which is preparing the agenda for the 4th Conference
of ECOWAS Ministers of Culture on Friday 25th November 2011 also in
Abuja, to come up with cogent recommendations to advance the
development of the sector.

Participants are also to consider progress report on resource
mobilization, as well as the reports of technical committee on
cultural experts, the second meeting of the regional copyright
observatory, and the jury report of the 6th edition of the ECOWAS
Price of Excellence.

Dr. Diop, who represented the President of the ECOWAS Commission, His
Excellency James Victor Gbeho, told the experts from Member States,
representatives of development partners and other stakeholders to
examine how the region had fared since 2002 when the First Conference
of ECOWAS Ministers of Culture was held in
Dakar, Senegal, and adopted the NEPAD-Culture Regional Action Plan.

In his remarks to declare the meeting open, Nigeria's Minister of
Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, Chief Edem Duke,
highlighted the dynamism and versatility of culture industries
describing them as "knowledge-based activities that produce tangible
goods and intangible intellectual or artistic services with creative
content, economic value and market objectives."

He lamented that while some developing countries especially the Asian
Tigers were reaping from the dynamics of the global creative
industries, a large majority of African countries "are yet to harness
their creative capacities for development gains due to policy
weaknesses and global systematic biases."

The Minister therefore charged the culture experts to "articulate
strategies that will transform the creative industries from
instruments and activities of mere decoration and entertainment to a
robust vessel of economic transformation and development which will
impact positively on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of our
countries."

To this end, he called for effective mapping of the culture industries
to "trigger proper data collection and documentation that will capture
the various sectors with their potentials as well as the barriers
hindering the development."