Jordan, Cultural policies and creative economy; what’s next?

Med Culture: Think Culture, Think Growth!

EU-Jordanian cooperation in the area of Culture has been quite dynamic in the recent years, both at bi-lateral and regional levels. The European Union has been supporting local cultural activities as well as exploring the potential of creative industries in the country through a series of concrete actions implemented by EUNIC-Jordan starting with the “Call to Action- Developing Creative Industries in Jordan” report, published in September 2013.

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This call was followed by the Symposium “Step into the Future- Creative Jordan”, as well as the establishment of Creative Jordan web portal with the hope to cast light on the future of the creative economy in Jordan and increase opportunities & collaborations among professionals. Jordan has been also a dynamic player in EU-funded regional programmes targeting specific cultural sub-sectors such as Euromed Audiovisual and Euromed Heritage.

To further the dialogue and build on the foundations that have been laid so far, the Med Culture programme held two consecutive consultation meetings with representatives from Jordanian line ministries on 29 April, 2014, as well as with professionals from the Culture & Creative sectors on 30 April, 2014. The meetings took place respectively in the premises of the EU delegation in Amman and the French Institute.

Representatives of both Ministries of Culture and of Tourism &Antiquities stressed on the importance of a national cultural strategy that encompasses & involves the various stakeholders in the public and private sectors towards more of an integrated approach to Culture. Whereas the meeting with cultural practitioners concluded with a consensus on the need for a greater role of the Ministry of Culture in supporting the sector by acting as a facilitator rather than cultural producer and distributor of activities. One of the participants pointed out a “lack in employing imagination and creativity to contribute solutions and envisioning the future of the country”. Whilst another wondered about the statute of the artist and possible solutions to protect artists, their freedom of expression and intellectual property rights.

The discussions were very interesting and the size of the participation of Cultural practitionners reflects a growing interest in bringing positive change and the willingness of the participants to rally efforts to help improve the situation.

The outcomes of these meetings shall feed in content the design & implementation of the corresponding action plans.

Similar meetings took place earlier this year in Tunisia (Feb 2014) and Morocco (March 2014).

It is worth mentioning that Med Culture foresees as well to develop activities & mechanisms that shall enhance networking and donor coordination at regional level.

Med Culture is a regional EU-funded programme that kicked off last February with the aim to help pave the way towards the creation of institutional & social environments that will eventually validate culture as vector for freedom of expression and sustainable development.