CFC’s Nollywood Conference on Best Practices Garners Support

Sandra Obiago, ED, Communicating for Change (CFC) has disclosed that the Nollywood Conference hosted by CFC, the UN and the World Intellectual Property Organization (Wipo); witnessed wide support from various quarters of the economy.
This revelation was made last week at a media briefing to communicate the outcomes of the conference which had both local and international stakeholders in the entertainment industry in attendance.
According to Obiago, “The conference focused on how the private and public sectors could boost Nigeria’s economy through copyright protection and structured investment in the entertainment industry. The sessions also focused on content development and how Nigeria’s internationally celebrated musicians, writers, performing artists, photographers, designers and other creative industry practitioners could contribute to making Nigerian film the best in the world.”
In her opening address to the conference, she called for the government to recognize Nigeria’s creative industries and Nollywood in particular, as the engine to power Nigeria’s economy; even as she stated at the post-conference media briefing, that there is the need to collect the economic data of the creative industry’s contribution to the national GDP.
“If we want to meet the Millennium Development Goals by eradicating poverty, getting girls into schools, cutting down our horrifically high maternal mortality rates and create lasting wealth, then we must build a strong legal and financial framework within which our creativity can be expressed, protected, and used to create jobs, sustain livelihoods, and showcase our rich culture,” she tasked stakeholders at the conference. “We need to put Nigeria on the front burner of international cultural and artistic excellence by using film to showcase the impressive spectrum of our awesome Nigerian art and creativity.”
Obiago also emphasized the need for government to help in boosting the Nigerian creative industry through subsidies, tax incentives, and signing of co-production treaties with countries with well developed film industries; noting that the South African film industry witnessed a boost within a short time, due to co-production treaties with the U.S, Canada, the U.K.
In the same vein, Donna Ghelfi, senior programme officer with the Creative Industries Division of Wipo, had confirmed the UN agency’s commitment to working with Nigerians to collect and track data showing the huge but presently invisible injection of capital from Nigeria’s creative industries in to the country’s economy.
She shared data from other economies, such as the US, where the creative industry provides more than 11% of GDP, and almost 9% of employment, as compared to the Philippines and Mexico, where the creative industry make up over 11% of employment.  On average in developed, developing and transition countries, the creative industry makes up over 5% of employment and 5.4% of GDP.  Of that 5.4%, press and literature contribute an average 44% to the creative industry, while radio & television come second with 12%, software comes third with 10%, followed by advertising with 9%.
Efere Ozako, managing partner of Efere Ozako & Associates, speaking on the issue of piracy and infringement on intellectual property rights at the post conference briefing, harped on the need for intellectual property rights owners to stand up to the menace; acknowledge the importance of their works and report cases of infringement to the appropriate authorities for proper prosecution.
He called on producers of music and film contents to make their productions have a lasting quality, adding that proper budgeting be made for them in order to turn out works that are world-class.
The Nollywood Conference closed with such recommendations for developing the Nigerian creative industry which includes that the finance, legal sector and insurance sectors need to agree and come up with a mechanism for the valuation of creative property assets, so that they can then be used as collateral; there needs to be a proper valuation of creative products and proper pricing of creative products; creators need to be clear about diverse types of ownership within productions, take time and set aside resources to properly document and complete the legal paperwork in order to ensure that the products can be internationally exhibited and sold.
Other recommendations are that the role of the film industry associations be strengthened - guilds, associations of directors, producers, screenwriters, performers, etc. should do more in defending the rights of their stakeholders in the industry; to tackle piracy, film makers must better understand their rights; consumers must be educated through a strong awareness raising campaign about the importance and benefits of buying genuine products, how to identify genuine creative products and how to help protect the creators of these works; the government should support the creative industries through subsidies, tax incentives, co-production treaties with other countries, law enforcement, and through legislation; Nollywood filmmakers should work closely with visual and performing artists, as well as with Nigeria’s top musicians, writers, designers, architects, and creators of creative content, to improve the quality of our films; among others.