Promotion of Cultural and Creative Industries (FOMECC)

PROMOTION OF CULTURAL AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES - 

Economic development through the Cultural Industries

Countries: Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, Senegal, Peru

Project initiated in: 2005

Presented by: Interarts

Partners: AECID, multiple local partners

Project budget: EUR 2 553 460

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// Context

The “Promotion of Cultural and Creative Industries” programme has been conceived as an operational model in which cultural production, given its potential to create wealth and employment, is understood as an instrument for development.

It aims at strengthening the role of artists, creators and cultural agents through a set of activities, including awareness-raising, training and specialised advice.

It provides the means to ensure that cultural entrepreneurial projects are not only profitable and sustainable but also sources of development and productivity that, ultimately, benefit the communities in which they are set.

FOMECC is based on two fundamental principles: the explicit acknowledgment that culture offers an incentive for social and economic development, and the potential of the cultural and creative industries to foster cultural diversity.

// Project objectives

• To promote, by encouraging and strengthening cultural and creative industries, the social and economic development of the arts and cultural sectors.
• To provide the opportunities for professional networking, business contacts and productive alliances for cultural and creative entrepreneurs.
• To increase the number of entrepreneurial projects which develop into cultural and / or creative businesses.
• To strengthen the professional skills and provide the tools to create viable enterprises in the cultural sector.
• To systematise information and improve knowledge on the structure and features of the cultural and creative business sector.

// Action and impact

Local revenue generation, job creation, innovation and creativity, social cohesion, strengthening of art-crafts activities and valuing of local resources.

The outcomes of FOMECC Colombia, the most advanced project, are:

• 122 businesses launched with approximately 244 jobs created in the following sectors: music and audio services, performing arts, audiovisual, graphic design and advertisement, visual arts, crafts and fashion; 
• development of structural links between cultural entrepreneurs and the traditional business sectors; participation in local business fairs;
• inclusion of a specific funding line for cultural entrepreneurs in the Development Plan of Medellín in 2009;
• setting up of strategic alliances with three national and two international institutions as well as specific agreements with local and national organisations for the development of concrete projects.

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