THE year 2022 saw sports and cultural ties between Tanzania and France going strong as Tanzanian envoy in France, Samwel Shelukindo noted recently in the interview with the ‘Daily News’.
Ambassador Shelukindo said in football, Tanzanian football, through Simba and Young Africans and Simba Queens, Tanzanian football enjoyed a very remarkable achievement in 2022 by doing well in CAF Champions League, CAF Confederation Cup and CAF Women’s Champions League, all three fielding players from Francophone countries and having their actions staged in Francophone countries.
He also earmarked that the Permanent Delegation has been active during UNESCO discussions in its related mandate fields including culture where Tanzania maintained seven sites in the list of World Heritage Sites, which also play a pivotal role in tourism attraction hence economic development of the country.
One of the notable cultural events that heralded the cultural ties came in September last year when eight Tanzanian cultural organisations working in collaboration with five French organisations, received 1.2b/- from the French government to support the creative industry in the country.
The project is aimed to support the country’s creative industry to increase competition, productivity, employment, and sustainable growth of the economy.
The French Embassy’s press statement highlighted the eight Tanzanian beneficiaries are: Art for Social and Economic Development in Africa (ASEDEVA), Cultural Arts Centre in Arusha, We-Present Tanzania, Ajabu AJabu, DCMA – Zanzibar, Alliance Française Dar es Salaam, Foundation for Civil Society (FCS) and Mudafrica.
On the French side, the selected partners are Moise Toure/Francis Viet, Indian Ocean Music Market (IOMMA) -La reunion, Off courts Trouville festival – Normandie, We Present – Marseille, and Africolor-Paris.
The worth project, known as the SANAAPRO, was launched on Wednesday by the French Embassy through the French Government’s Solidarity Fund for Innovative Projects (FSPI).
The SanaaPRO project falls under “FSPI SANAAPRO”; it is a priority of the French Embassy in Tanzania in response to the statement made by French President Emmanuel Macron on the creative industry sector.
President Macron, at the New Africa France Summit in Montpelier in October last year, saw Tanzania represented by 16 individuals, entrepreneurs, human rights defenders, civil society leaders, and sports champions.
The project’s goal includes training 70 technicians in sound, lighting, and management, training 72 HIP-HOP artists from Tanzania, producing two short films of international quality, and organising nine discussions about the innovation industry.
The project also aims to address gender inequality in the creative industry environment, so there will be special artistic and management programmes for women will be created at the event.
“The general objective of this project is to support the creative industry in Tanzania. The creative industry has become an interesting strategic sector to boost competitiveness, productivity, employment and sustainable economic growth.
Also heralded last year’s strong ties were eight content creators who conveyed their words of appreciation to the Audio-Visual House (Ajabu Ajabu) seven-day training aimed to nourish their content production in the world market.
On his part, the coordinator of the training, Habibu Diliwa, said they are very grateful to the France Embassy for being able to bring these directors from France.
The aim was to construct content creators to build works that embrace African culture in their storytelling and use cinema as a platform for questioning, exploring, inventing and expressing.
