IS KENYA READY FOR THE CREATIVE ECONOMY?

The term "creative economy” was coined by John Howkins in his book published in 2001 about how people make money from ideas.
Since then, the debate around this idea has grown in both size and significance leading to the 2008 United Nations Report on the Creative Economy.

So, what exactly is the creative economy?

The Creative Economy is an economy where people’s ideas are the most important factors of production, and not land, labour nor capital.

And what, then, is creativity?

Creativity is often identified with the arts and its final product, which is culture. So when we talk of creativity we often think of fine art, music, design, architecture, fashion, theatre, publishing and so on.


This concept of the Creative Economy is especially significant in the Kenyan context as it proposes a new economic order built on ideas as a factor of production, replacing land, labour and capital, the factors upon which the industrial economy was built.


If its true that the industrial economy is giving way to the creative economy, and capital losing importance to ideas, then therein lies a significant opportunity for growing economies like ours to leap-frog the slow and capital-intensive process of industrialization and to begin using ideas as a means to accelerate social and economic development.


But designers and performers are not the only creative people. Prof Richard Florida, the American economist and urban theorist, in his influential book, “The Rise of The Creative Class” reckons that anyone involved in work that requires the forging of ideas, is a creative worker. And so he widens the “creative class” to include scientists, engineers, urban planners, researchers, and so on. People who add value to the economy with their creative input.

It is this creative class who build the creative economy.

Now, Kenya, with its much-respected human resource base, stands at an advantage to harness her “creative class” by establishing policies and programs that will grow the creative economy.

Much like China has done over the last few years.

In China, the “cultural creative industries” started booming several years ago. According to trade figures presented in the United Nations Creative Economy Report, 2008, China has become the leading player in the world market for creative goods. This has been the result of a clear determination by that government to fully explore the potential of the creative industries.

An illustration of the application of a creative-industry development policy in an urban setting is provided by Shanghai, where the Shanghai Municipal Government has clearly stated that the development of creative industries is one of its priorities during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010).

According to the Shanghai Creative Industry Center, 3,000 companies from 30 countries had entered one of the 75 new creative industry parks (2.2 million sqm) around the city, creating job opportunities for more than 25,000 people. In 2005, the creative industries of Shanghai realized an increase of 54.9 billion yuan in turnover, nearly 18 per cent higher than that of the previous year. In 2005, the total turnover of the creative industries accounted for 6 per cent of the GDP of the city.

The statistics are impressive, no doubt.

But even more impressive is the thinking behind the statistics.
To demonstrate importance with which Chinese authorities consider this idea, John Howkins, the father of the creative economy, so to speak, is a leading figure in China’s creative economy.
Howkins is Chairman of the John Howkins Research Centre on the Creative Economy, launched in 2006 by the Shanghai Municipal Government at the Shanghai School of Creativity at the Shanghai Theatre Academy and also an adviser to the Shanghai Creative Industries Association and the Shanghai Creative Industry Centre.

Moreover, the impressive economic performance of China over the past several decades has made its development experience rather distinct from those of many other economies. China had the fastest economic growth in the world for more than 25 years and recently has been attracting FDI on the order of $60 billion per year. As a result, in a relatively short period starting in 1990, its exports of services increased eightfold, amounting to $70 billion in 2005. Much of this, can be attributed to China’s emphasis on the importance of tapping into the creative economy.


The question now is, can Kenya take advantage of its vastly skilled “Creative Class” both within and outside the country, and tap into the creative economy to fast-track social and economic development?