The Ministry of Local Government, Unity and Culture has secured a USD 30,000 package for Malawi National Arts and Heritage Promotion Fund operationalization, which will help practitioners in the cultural and creative sector.
Addressing the media in Lilongwe on Monday, deputy minister of Local Government, Unity and Culture, Owen Chomanika said the sponsorship is from the UNESCO-Aschberg Programme.
“The sponsorship is in form of technical assistance for the development of regulations for the establishment and operationalization of the Malawi National Arts and Heritage Promotion Fund.
“Under this Project, the UNESCO-Aschberg Programme will support the Malawi Government with two experts who will work on the development of regulations for the Fund.
“The experts will do a desk review of similar establishments, hold stakeholder consultations, and do a validation meeting of the regulations. The experts will also conduct a comparative analysis to appreciate how cultural trust funds are managed within the region,” he said
The Malawi National Arts and Heritage Promotion Fund is one of the provisions proposed in both the National Cultural Policy and the National Arts and Heritage Council Bill.
‘The proposed Fund will be established under the National Arts and Heritage Council. This Fund will also be in response to the findings of the review of the sector done in 2019 which identified the need for the establishment of multiple and robust financing structures for the cultural and creative industries.
“With the Fund established, operators and stakeholders in the sector will have access to financial resources that will help in implementing creative projects, enjoy rights to artistic freedom, and promote the diversity of cultural expressions.
“The Fund will also support the Malawi 2063 which calls for policy interventions to make arts and culture as one of the sectors to grow the economy through income generation among artists, in communities where arts and culture thrive, and through export of creative products and services,” said Chomanika
The UNESCO-Aschberg Programme is one of the programmes run by UNESCO and aims at supporting initiatives by governments and civil society organizations whose goals are to protect and promote artistic freedom in over 25 countries. The program is run with financial support from the Government of the Kingdom of Norway.
This technical support is a result of the successful application which the Ministry, through the Department of Arts, had done under the 2023 Call for Applications. Malawi joins Argentina, Côte dIvoire, Chile, Djibouti, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Niger, Mongolia, Senegal, Zimbabwe and the CECC-SICA (Costa Rica, Belize, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama) as the beneficiaries for the 2023 edition of the Programme.
The key focus of the UNESCO-Aschberg Programme is to offer technical assistance to develop laws, regulations or policies for supporting artistic freedom, decent work and enhanced status for artists and culture professionals.
This project will be implemented in nine months in collaboration with the Malawi National Commission for UNESCO and in close consultation with the civil society in the cultural and creative industries.
