VP: Arts stakeholders vital in TZ Vision 2050

VICE-President Philip Mpango

VICE-President Philip Mpango has encouraged arts and creative arts stakeholders’ participation in preparing the National Development Vision 2050, insisting their participation will help to boost the sector’s status as many youths are employed there.

Vice-President Mpango made the call when launching the preparation of the Development Vision 2050, where he pointed out that the creative arts industry is one of the emerging and essential sectors of the country.

In the 2021 report on the national economy, the arts, sports and entertainment sectors were among the fasting growing sectors, with an average growth of 19.4 per cent and its contribution to the economy of 0.3 per cent.

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“As Tanzanians, there are many opportunities; we can make our language, culture, arts, sports and creative industries a commodity and growth will reflect the sector.”

The government’s effort to ensure this sector is prosperous as just last week, the Minister of Culture, Arts and Sports, Pindi Chana, voiced that it’s crucial to invest in the industry due to its importance and contribution to the country’s development.

Insisting it is among the industries that directly benefit its citizens.

She further added that the sector has a tremendous power of influence, mobilisation and development of society and help the country’s development by employing most youth, tourism, combating non-communicable diseases and increasing cooperation among nations.

Pindi stressed that through the docket Ministry, the government had taken various steps, including preparing a strategy for the sector’s development, reviewing policies and laws that govern the industry, repairing and constructing sports infrastructure.

Among the initiatives the government has worked on and vowed to work tirelessly is addressing all matters related to copyright infringement and content piracy to empower stakeholders in the creative industry to benefit from the content created.

To ensure the goal meets, the Deputy Minister for Information, Communication and Information Technology, Kundo Mathew, last December directed the Copyright Office of Tanzania to work closely with other government institutions in using technology to improve royalties’ collections and distribution to copyright holders.

He, therefore, advised the Copyright Office to associate with institutions such as Information and Communication Technologies Commission (ICTC) and Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) that are directly linked with technological development.

Deputy Minister added that by doing this, the income to the youth would increase, the industry would be stable and the value of art would increase, thus contributing to a significant income for the nation through taxes.

During the occasion, the Copyright Office of Tanzania held an independent forum that brought stakeholders of creative artists and content creators.

Through the forum, the stakeholders had the opportunity to discuss how content holders can benefit from their creative works through legal and digital transformation.

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