News
Launch of the UNESCO-Aschberg Programme in Namibia
This fund was created to establish a council to oversee and manage the fund as well as promote the development of arts in Namibia amongst others.
The UNESCO-Aschberg programme availed US$30 000 towards reviewing and drafting the National Arts Fund (NAF) Bill, which will be drafted in partnership with the Ministry of Justice.
According to Mrs Helvi Elago, the National Programme Officer for Culture at UNESCO, Namibia is one of the twenty-five (25) beneficiaries of this second UNESCO-Aschberg call which was launched in 2022. The UNESCO-Aschberg programme was reconceptualized to become the operational arm of UNESCO to support Member States in the design of reforms or new regulatory frameworks to protect and promote artistic freedom including the social and economic rights of artists and cultural professionals.
Artists do not only produce work that appeals to the senses, but their creations can also highlight issues, challenge norms, and encourage conversations driving development processes. Without artistic freedom including the social and economic conditions necessary to foster artistic expression, it is not only artists that are deprived of their means to survive but society as a whole will miss opportunities to imagine alternative futures.
Hon. Faustina Caley, Deputy Minister of Education, Arts and Culture, emphasized in her remarks that now rather than later is the opportune time to revise, update and improve the current legislation to stand on par with those in other parts of the region, such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and more recently Botswana. She further acknowledged the importance of the need for state parties to have improved and aligned legal frameworks, pertaining to culture, which is the heartbeat of sustainable development.
To recognize the ever-changing ways of the creative industries we need to better serve our artists, cultural practitioners and all creatives as best as we can so that they may be able to continue creating, generating income and increase opportunities and employment creation.
UNESCO State Parties have, in accordance with multiple cultural conventions, more specifically UNESCO鈥檚 2005 Convention on the Protection and the Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions - to which Namibia is a signatory too, the sovereign right to adopt measures and policies to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions within its territory and beyond. Hence, it is opportune to review the National Arts Fund Act to give recognition to the distinctive nature of artistic and cultural activities, goods and services, as vehicles of identity, values and meaning.
The revision is one of the outcomes of the 2022 National Conference on Education recommendations - which proposed the revision and provision of regulations for numerous legal frameworks of the Act, to speak to the changes in modern-day society and the creative industries, to better serve artists and cultural practitioners.
