Good to hear Government intends to fund festivals

PRESENTING the 2019 budget a few weeks ago, the Minister of Finance, Prof Mthuli Ncube mentioned Government’s intentions to fund arts festivals and exhibitions. For some of us in the arts and working with festivals this was indeed welcome news. We have always advocated that Government visibly supports festivals and the arts in general. To be honest before the minister’s announcement the future of local festivals looked really gloom, very bleak. But with the minister’s announcement hope was rekindled and there was a loud sigh of relief within the arts sector. We say this because in the past five years we have been seeing good festivals either shutting down or cancelling editions.

Once upon a time, actually not so many years ago, Zimbabwe had over 30 arts and culture festivals sprinkled around the country and spread throughout the year. But today only a handful are surviving. Most have died with the drying up of foreign funding — a reason we strongly believe both local and national governments should seriously support arts festivals — the support we envisage is not about coming to officiate at some of the arts events and disappearing for the rest of the year but actually availing resources for the curation of festivals and commissioning of works for festivals and touring. In Europe and various other African countries — for example South Africa — local governments are heavily supporting arts festivals and other arts initiatives. Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg, all these cities support festivals.

There are many reasons why local and national governments should support festivals. Here are some of the reasons: Cultural festivals are the main drivers of cultural tourism. Today, more than before, festivals have become important creative activities for developing countries, particularly when associated with tourism and the promotion and celebration of cultural diversity. Festivals are now perfect platforms to appreciate, acknowledge and celebrate a nation’s tangible and intangible heritage.

Festivals have become a popular mechanism to re-organise cultural products in the context of economic challenges and to make artistic works accessible to the general public. Festivals promote inter-cultural exchanges and are critical cultural spaces for citizen participation. They also act as meeting spaces for debating communal issues.

It is for the above reason that Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo and Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) partnered a year or so ago. It is for the same reason why we believe the partnership should continue. The partnership between ZTA and Intwasa could, perhaps, be used in future as a model of how local governments and parastatals can partner with festivals and make more impact.

So now with Government coming on board it is more than important for all festivals in Zimbabwe to work towards a shared national vision for the preservation and promotion of Zimbabwe’s rich and diverse cultural heritage and even market Zimbabwe as an important tourist destination.

In light of Zimbabwe’s development agenda local governments and even the national one might find it important and critical to support festivals because most of them are: Rooted in their communities — this means supporting a festival will be as good as supporting and uplifting the communities in which these festivals are rooted or curated.

Promoting cultural diversity and inclusion — there is no better way to support inclusion and diversity than by giving the different communities platforms to celebrate their identity and diversity. As they say, festivals bring people together.

If our Government is serious about eradicating poverty — investing in the arts one good way to get good results. Most artistes are poor and hardly find work. If Government can invest in a network of festivals that could mean a serious and stable employment base for artistes and technical people in Zimbabwe. Also with the new curriculum in schools successful festivals can actually give young and aspiring artistes a bigger vision of what could be achieved in future thereby inspiring them to take their art in schools very seriously.