Dar launches Culture Africa project with fully artists’ participation

DAR ES SALAAM: A cultural and creative research project known as Connect for Culture Africa (CfCA) was launched today, August 22, 2025 in Dar es Salaam where artists of cultural and creative arts participated in a special discussion as a starting point for the project that will involve youth across the country.

The project also aims to find solutions to the challenges of cultural and creative arts by putting in place strong strategies to promote these arts.

The CfCA project will start fully implementation from 2026 to 2030 with funding from the SELAM Institute which is collaborating with the Tanzania Bora Initiative (TBI) and the Government

Speaking today after launching the project, the Swedish Ambassador to Tanzania, Charlotta-Ozaki Macias, said the project is part of a policy-making forum where they will exchange experiences between ministries, cultural leaders and other stakeholders.

She said Sweden is changing to support the promotion of culture and creativity because investing in culture is investing in people

“ Connect for culture Africa needs more cooperation a year ago we worked with CfCA during what they did in Tanzania, we have focused on an important discussion I can say SELAM we told them we want them to come to Tanzania to work together and it is not a matter of money but cooperation,” she said

She added “This investment is the cultural heritage of Tanzania. Here in the country the budget that goes to culture is 0.6 percent needs more investment in this and that is why connect africa has come up with this.

For his part, Deputy Director General of Tanzania Bora Initiative, Ismail Biro said the project will create cooperation for stakeholders to increase the value of art, heritage and culture where they will look at areas of cooperation in providing services and manufacturing products.

“We will look at how to provide training in the area to improve their work and be able to expand domestic and foreign markets we are looking at how to cooperate with the government.

The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Information, Arts, Culture and Sports, Mfaume Said, said the government is working by looking at statistics and for a long time they have not done research so the coming of this project is a good start for the government.

“We are grateful that you have arrived in Tanzania, you will open doors to areas of focus. There are many issues that have been done by the government, for example BASATA and COSOTA, fees have been abolished to encourage artists to work in a friendly environment.

In these issues that we are participating in, we listen to the ideas of government stakeholders to know what to do. We are learning from them.

He urged them to invite other stakeholders who are interested in participating in the culture and arts sector, while emphasizing that the government has a strategy to build cultural parks.

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“There will be various cultural issues. We will build the Kawe stadium, the National Stadium and Dodoma stadiums so that now stakeholders in the culture and arts sector can do their jobs professionally. I thank the ambassador, we are not behind you, we are doing a lot, we have revitalized the culture and arts sector so that stakeholders can get loans even though there are challenges,” he emphasized