Department: Arts and Culture, South Africa

Overview of the Service Delivery Environment and Key Policy Developments, a Speech Given by Deputy Minister Ntombazana Botha on the Occasion of the NCOP Visit to Empangeni

1 November 2004

The strategic framework for the transformation of the arts, culture, and heritage is outlined in the 1996 White Paper on Arts, Culture and Heritage. Responsibility for the implementation of these policies is now vested in the Department of Arts and Culture, which came into being on 1 August 2002. A key objective is to redirect and grow the arts and culture budget to serve the artistic and cultural needs of the entire country. Institutional renewal has also been important and initially focused on the former performing arts councils, which absorbed the bulk of arts funding in the past.

Promoting arts and culture for social cohesion

Arts and culture has always played a significant role in social regeneration, unity and reconciliation. The Arts and Culture in Society unit facilitates strategic support to arts institutions and civil society organizations. It involves developing the arts, but also plays an important role in relation to a range of social challenges. It strives to address issues of inclusion and integration and to remove disparities in the resourcing of the arts and culture sector. Its strategic imperatives are to include vulnerable groups like the disabled, youth, women and children. It has also paid special attention to issues of transformation of the sector to introduce equity in the distribution of resources and to facilitate access to facilities. Playhouses, funding bodies and community arts centres receive grants to run programmes and to develop arts and culture.

Promoting linguistic diversity

South Africa’s linguistic diversity is supported by constitutional commitments to protecting language rights and promoting its indigenous languages. In 2003, Cabinet approved the National Language Policy Framework, comprising a policy statement, implementation plan and a language code of conduct for South Africa. The Framework promotes the equitable use of the 11 official languages, and ensures redress for the previously marginalized indigenous languages. The policy targets all government structures, and while increasing the number of languages in which official publications will typically be available, it will also promote efficient public service administration through the production of relevant publications on language. Provinces will formulate their own policies according to regional circumstances. The policy will be phased in progressively.

International partnerships

The Department participates in all bi-national commissions between South Africa and its foreign partners, in bilateral activities with identified partners and in United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), African, Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP), group, International Network on Cultural Policies (INCP), African Union (AU) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) activities. Precedence is accorded to South-South collaboration. The cross-sectoral impact of culture in development forms the founding principle of the Department’s International Relations. Foreign development aid programmes and international agreements or partnerships have been established with a number of African, Asian, European and North American countries. These partnerships, e.g. the South African-Swedish partnership and the Flemish partnership, provide financial support for the arts (at least R70 million over three years) and human resource development assistance. Collaborative projects with Italy and France will further enhance this initiative. The Department is in the process of registering as a member of the Commonwealth Foundation on behalf of South Africa, which will further strengthen international opportunities to leverage skills and resources.

Transforming the heritage sector

The establishment of the South African Heritage Resource Agency as a statutory body in 2002 and the National Heritage Council in 2003 has made better management of heritage resources and the transformation of the sector possible. A lead project in this area is the proposed Nkosi Albert Luthuli Museum in KwaDukuza, KwaZulu-Natal.

In 1998, Cabinet approved nine legacy projects to start correcting distortions in the representation of specific aspects of the country’s history, to encourage nation-building, and to contribute towards tourism development.

To date six of the projects have been delivered, including the Women’s Memorial and Anglo-Boer South African War Commemoration. The Department will engage Parliament for the approval of eight further national legacy projects. Disbursement from the special allocation to institutions for transformation purposes has increased the opportunities for transformation by increasing the funding scope of institutions. The Department started with a priority programme in the 2002/03 financial year to increase access to institutions by improving museum buildings and infrastructure. Greater emphasis will also be placed on the security of collections and undertaking a national audit of all heritage collections in the country (museums and other institutions) to limit criminal activities, including fraudulent international trade.

Supporting the cultural industries

The Cultural Industries Growth Strategy capitalizes on the economic potential of the craft, music, film, publishing, and design industries. Departmental support goes towards developing public/ private partnerships and initiatives, using culture as a tool for urban regeneration and efforts to coordinate the industries. There is an increased focus on the potential of the film industry.

A special poverty relief allocation aims at providing access to sills and markets as a tool for urban regeneration, rural development, and job creation. Projects are undertaken in partnership with provincial and local government, as well as government and non-governmental organizations. The Wild Coast, Lebombo and Maputo Corridor spatial development initiatives are focal areas of cultural tourism development linked to this allocation. This initiative will continue through the allocation of funds to the Investing in Culture project. Investing in Culture will also strive to capacitate all aspects of culture towards achieving the goals mentioned above.

Aims

To develop capital by allocating resources to ensure return on investment that will fulfill the key objectives of DAC and broader government imperatives.

Objectives

Create opportunities for musicians, performers, crafters, and artists to contribute to the economy
Contribute to the sustainability of projects by providing the necessary training (product development, entrepreneurial skills)
Develop infrastructure in order to promote enterprise development
Support heritage development projects
Create employment for rural based women in KwaZulu Natal, Eastern Cape, Freestate and North West
To alleviate proverty
Contribute to the development of ‘livable communities’.

The Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) supports the notion that many of the economically poor communities within our borders are the owners of natural and human resources, cultural assets, skills, indigenous knowledge, traditions and customs that can be the key in effecting social and economic change. Our communities are rich in traditional knowledge, talent and artistic output from highly skilled individuals in both formal and informal as well as non-formal education backgrounds. The DAC works from the premise that the Investing in Culture programme should begin with these assets and invest in people with the ability to make e.g. objects, artifacts, productions and music. The underlying philosophy applied by DAC to the Investing in Culture programme is that as important as the provision of immediate relief to poor communities through various welfare programmes is, the success in the long term lies in the ensuring economic sustainability.

In rural communities, the sections of society directly affected by poverty are women and children. The Investing in Culture programme consciously targets women, young people and to some extent the disabled.

The Ten Year review of government identified types of poverty within the South African Society, the Department of Arts and Culture with its mandate is addressing the following types of poverty:

Asset Poverty: by providing capital for raw materials (beads, materials, etc.) and in extreme cases for infrastructure development.
Skills Poverty: by providing access to training and learnerships (human resource development). To this effect the MAPSETA has developed nine learnerships ranging from SQA 2 to 9.
Income Poverty: by providing support to income generating enterprises and supporting the establishment of sustainable SMME’s.
Markets: an integrated approach to accessing markets for SA projects and services has been adopted. Public/private initiatives including State owned entities and NGO’s (Cape Craft Design Institute).

Products from some of the Investing in Culture Projects are available from retail stores like Woolworth’s and abroad through a partnership with Conran Marketing. Projects involved are from the Eastern Cape (6 villages in Mount Ayliff and Burgersdorp) and Limpopo (Twananani, Mbokota in Louis Trichard, Makosha in Giyani and Vuhlalu in Acornhoek).

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Other developments

Promoting new national symbols and institutions to the South African general public will continue in 2004. The Bureau of Heraldry designed parliamentary symbols for all the provincial legislatures, incorporating African symbolism and contributing towards the transformation and refiguring of heraldry for the African Renaissance. Designs for the parliamentary maces and black rods were adopted. The Timbuktu Manuscripts project was formally launched on Africa Day, 25 May 2003, by the Presidents of South Africa and Mali, and has been adopted as the first Nepad cultural project. At the 37th Round Table Conference of the International Council on Archives in Cape Town in October 2003, nine ministers from SADC countries and Kenya endorsed a declaration on the role of archives in promoting good governance and human rights for adoption as a Nepad project. In collaboration with Standards South Africa, a national standard for records management was adopted as SANS 15489. The final consignment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) records has been received at the National Archives and is being professionally processed. In July 2003 the National Film, Video and Sound Archives hosted a function whereby the Japanese ambassador to South Africa officially handed over a R5 million grant-in-aid package, consisting of audio-visual equipment to the Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture. The Department leads government participation in the Moral Regeneration Movement, and coordinates programmes for out-of-school youth and the rehabilitation of prisoners.

I thank you.