Ministry eyes $100b contribution from creative arts to GDP

The Federal Government is to generate $100 billion from creative arts.

It also promised to make Nigeria a creative hub.

Minister of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa, pledged in Abuja during a visit to The Fashion Academy ­- a private vocational school.

Impressed by the academy’s waste-to-wealth initiatives, the minister promised that the ministry would collaborate with it to promote their creations globally.

While calling on young creatives to register on the newly launched Creative Leap Acceleration Programme (CLAP), the minister said the initiative marks a significant milestone in Nigeria’s journey towards “harnessing the boundless potentials of our creative minds.”

The programme, she stressed, aims to position the country as a global hub for arts, culture and creatives.

While admitting that one of the major challenges faced by Nigerian creatives is the lack of financial resources to support their endeavours, Musawa announced that the ministry is in the process of setting up a fund to support participants in the programme.

Her words: “The Ministry is going to partner to see how we can use our platform to support the initiative and help The Fashion Academy on the amazing job they are doing.

“I will go back and have an inter-ministerial meeting with relevant ministries to present this idea to them, to see how we can leverage what they have already started. My hope is for us to export some of these great African expressions to the Diaspora.”

On her part, the Chief Executive Officer of The Fashion Academy, Nina Yusuf-Kwande, said its Scrap to Bank (S2B) programme is a women’s economic empowerment and poverty alleviation initiative targeted at young Nigerian women with a flair for a career in the fashion industry.

She explained that wastes collected from fashion designing houses by the academy have been converted to household items like table mats, kitchen gloves, aprons, bags, and pillow cushions, among others.