Building on the success of CANEX at the Intra African Trade Fair 2021 that took place in South Africa, this year’s Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX), presented by African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) in collaboration with the government of Cote d’Ivoire and the African Union Commission, will take place in Abidjan. CANEX, an Afreximbank programme, is a comprehensive intervention designed to facilitate the development and growth of creative and cultural industries in Africa, amplifying the creation of a market ecosystem.

Echoing CANEX at the IATF, the three-day event that is set to take place from the 25th to the 27th of November, will bring together creative entrepreneurs, businesses, investors, creative industry leaders, and government representatives. Each day will include break-away and highly interactive sessions that tackle key challenges faced within the African creative environment.

AMAKA spoke to the Afreximbank team to understand more about the event and its plans beyond 2022.

Why is it important for CANEX to foster the growth of cultural and creative industries across Africa?

Financing is one of the biggest factors that hold creative and cultural industries back – almost every creative laments about financing being a challenge. One of CANEX’s instruments of intervention is providing financing in different forms. What core criteria do you look for in SMEs for them to be eligible for financing?

Afreximbank is increasingly prioritising SME Development in Africa, noting the critical role that SMEs (including the creatives) play with regards to job creation, innovation, youth engagement and GDP growth.

In terms of SME support, the Bank is focused on providing direct support to scalable ventures that have the propensity to trade across borders in the short to medium term. These businesses are typically majority African owned, with a minimum viable product that is fully operational and backed by a feasible business model (evidenced by growing sales). The Bank also delivers financial support to SMEs across the continent through local financial intermediaries and other specialised financing institutions. 

Overall, the Bank seeks to support competitive SME’s that align with its mandate of facilitating intra-African trade and export development, and seeks to grow their various value chains across film, music, fashion etc. More specifically, export-oriented companies that are credit-worthy, with a healthy growth in earnings and have market ready products. 

CANEX aims to facilitate the development and growth of the creative and cultural industries in Africa, through strategic partnerships, facilitating access to international markets, and engaging in trade and export development initiatives, amongst other things. What is the ultimate favourable outcome from all this work – where do CANEX and/or Afreximbank envision the creative and cultural industries of Africa in the next decade?

Given the relevance and opportunities provided by the creative economy as a key driver for development and job creation, Afreximbank has deployed the Creative Africa Nexus Programme to facilitate the development and growth of the creative and cultural industries in Africa and the diaspora. The programme provides a range of financing instruments as well as trade facilitation interventions to support Africa’s production, trade, and investment in creative content.

Over the next decade, the various CANEX initiatives aim to increase the contribution that Africa’s creative industries make within the global economy through targeted interventions that address the key challenges to growth.

Some of the key strategic objectives under the CANEX Programme include increasing Africa’s share of global cultural trade flows through trade and investment promotion activities, deploying specialised financial products to support the CCI ecosystem. Some key instruments of intervention from the programme also include capacity building, linkages and partnerships, digital solutions, export and investment promotion, as well as policy advocacy for harmonised regulatory reform especially in relation to IP rights.

CANEX WKND builds on the success of the CANEX at IATF that took place in Durban, and it aims to present networking opportunities between creatives and, as well as potential partners and investors. How is CANEX WKND different from CANEX at IATF, or is it an extension/continuation of the latter? Please elaborate.

A number of important policy and business focused conversations were started at CANEX at IATF 2021, many aimed at developing solutions for the most pressing challenges facing Africa’s CCIs. CANEX WKND will see a continuation of these conversations to provide key inputs to role players such as CANEX WKND conveners Afreximbank, along with the AU, and also the many potential finance and investment partners in attendance. The conversations that take place at CANEX events are directly contributing to better policy development and to creating a more viable investment environment within Africa’s creative sectors.

The CANEX WKND therefore is another important milestone in Afreximbank’s implementation of the Creative Africa Nexus (CANEX) programme. This event will also introduce several topics, interventions and initiatives that will further be developed over the next year in the build-up to CANEX at IATF2023.

At the event, there will be exhibitions, networking, and panel discussions on topics relevant and crucial to creative sectors. Who are some of the panellists we can expect and what are some of the topics that will be touched on?

A range of conversations and masterclasses will take place at CANEX WKND, while the event speakers are currently being finalised, the topics and conversations that will take place have been finalised. Some of these key topics include:

Promoting Africa’s CCIs: This will be a high-level discussion on promoting creative and cultural expression through policies, financing, regulations and institutional collaborations/ partnerships/ bi-lateral and multilateral cooperation.

Visual Arts – Creating a New African Narrative: This session will focus on building transformational narratives for Africa through visual arts, working together to create a roadmap that advocates for the return and protection of art, generating local appreciation and consumption of art, and collaborating to exhibit and monetise our art forms.

The Business of Sports: If properly harnessed, Africa’s sports industry has immense economic growth potential. This conversation will highlight emerging trends in esports, sports e-commerce and African sports development as opportunities for direct and indirect investment.

CANEX WKND will include an exhibition and market where creative brands and companies can showcase their products and services, a meeting lounge with key buyers and investors in attendance, masterclasses in a range of breakout and in-depth interactive sessions, as well as full day of panel discussions and conversations developed to continue the conversations from CANEX at IATF2021. Attendees can also expect Live performances, an Art Installation, a runway fashion show, a music concert , and a red-carpet film event.

Who is welcome to attend and be a part of CANEX WKND?

The ‘creative economy’ is an evolving concept which builds on the interplay between human creativity, ideas, intellectual property, knowledge, and technology. Sectors covered under the strategy include film and media content, music, performing and visual arts, design (fashion, graphic, product), crafts, sports, museums and galleries. 

All industry stakeholders including creative sector professionals, creatives, and those in the related support services are all welcome to attend alongside their policy, financing, business and investment counterparts. All those working within or those who have the desire to work within these sectors are welcome to attend CANEX WKND. It is free to attend, and registration is open at www.canex.africa.