Barbados: Strengthening entrepreneurship through policies and strategies
Barbados enjoys a vibrant cultural scene but faces challenges that hinder the cultural sector’s growth. The country recognizes that in order to take effective measures, there is a need to build stronger ties and engage with cultural businesses and entrepreneurs.
With the aim of diversifying its sources of income, Barbados is working to transform its cultural sector into a dynamic provider of jobs.
A National Task Force on Cultural Industries was set up and led to the development of a national Cultural Industries Bill focusing on creating financial incentives and measures to support these industries. In this context, the Government sought technical assistance from UNESCO.
The aim of the mission was to assist Barbados in identifying critical challenges for a future cultural industries policy and develop a series of comprehensive policy and strategic recommendations in order to make cultural industries one of the cornerstones of the Barbadian economy.
The exchanges highlighted the need to foster cultural entrepreneurship, notably through strategic support to the development of creative businesses, and helped identify strategies that successful entrepreneurs have employed to address these challenges.
Drawing from these findings, the group developed the following main recommendations:
- assess the economic impact and market opportunities of the cultural and creative industries;
- provide support to creative businesses, through an independent agency;
- enhance sources of income for creators in the cultural and creative industries through the promotion of intellectual property rights
- explore new avenues of financing for the culture sector;
- set up educational and training programmes to address the needs of the cultural and creative industries; and
- align strategies and policies for broadcasting, communications, media and technology with the strategies and policies that support the development of the cultural and creative industries.
Please consult here a summary of the overall results of the missions and the future steps to be taken.