UAE highlights role played by creative, cultural industries
ABU DHABI: The Ministry of Culture and Youth participated in the Unesco World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development — MONDIACULT 2022, which took place from Sept.28-30, 2022, in Mexico.
A delegation headed by Salem Al Qasimi, Permanent Delegate of the UAE to Unesco, represented the UAE at the conference, while Noura Bint Mohammed Al Kaabi, Minister of Culture and Youth, participated via video conference.
Al Kaabi delivered a Thematic Session Statement at a session on the Future of the Creative Economy on Sept.29, 2022, and spoke extensively about the growing importance of the creative economy in a post-pandemic world shedding light on how the UAE was leveraging the cultural and creative industries to diversify its economy.
“The UAE has recognised the growing power of the cultural and creative industries (CCI) within the wider economy, as well as its vulnerability to unpredictable events,” she said.
“The CCI contribute to 3.5 per cent of the UAE’S GDP and are projected to grow to 5 per cent by 2031. Within this context, we moved quickly to adapt our strategy and policy work in this area accordingly, both on a federal and local level. The UAE Culture Agenda 2031 was launched in 2018, as the first nationwide strategy unifying the efforts of the national culture sector,” Al Kaabi added.
Speaking about the impact of the pandemic and how the CCI would realign to the transformations, she said that although the COVID-19 pandemic was detrimental to the CCI sector, the UAE was quick to adapt to the situation by appropriate policy intervention.
“We launched the National Creative Relief Fund to mitigate the pandemic’s financial impact by offering relief packages to creative practitioners and SMES. Our cultural operators stepped in to provide economic catalysts, digital activations, and free access to knowledge and content to sustain the creative spirit. We also boosted the Golden Visa Scheme to sustain the livelihoods of creative practitioners in the UAE.”
Speaking about strengthening and streamlining the creative economy, Al Kaabi touched upon the Creative UAE strategy and the Framework for Culture and Arts Education presented by the UAE at the 211th session of the Executive Board of UNESCO. “In 2021, the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development, we launched a 10-year National Strategy for the Cultural and Creative Industries, which aims to foster a robust creative ecosystem within the national economy. Globally, we were driven to present two resolutions to UNESCO’S Executive Board, one focusing on Culture and Arts Education, and the other on Consolidating Action for the Creative Economy.