The Culture Climate Change

Funding has a significant impact on the cultural climate. The low priority of culture in government budgets is echoed by the culture and creative industries professionals across the globe. With the financial crisis, followed by the economic and social crisis which spread from the United States to Europe, the trend towards less and less public spending being allocated to culture has accelerated. At the same time, however, public officials affirm that the arts, culture and, more broadly, the creative industries, constitute one of the most reliable means available to contemporary developed societies to overcome the crisis.

How can such a paradox be understood? In addition, corporate social responsibility and sustainable development policies are downplaying the importance of sponsorship. With all these challenges facing the Cultural and Creative Industries how do professionals in the sectors seek and bridge that gap? What are the resources available to support?

As an expert in Resources Mobilization for culture, Ouafa has conducted a MENA-wide research on the emergency support that was or was not provided for the arts during the pandemic. How well did we mobilize our resources? Are there success stories? What more can be done, or what can really be done moving forward? By displaying the facts and figures collected from this research along with the multiple conversations that Ouafa had conducted with stakeholders, we will discuss in this talk those facts and what more as individuals should have done and what can we do.

About Ouafa Belgacem

Ouafa is an expert in Resources Mobilization and sustainability and a researcher interested in topics related to arts and culture funding, cultural policies and art financial engineering. She is the founder and CEO of Culture Funding Watch www.culturfundingwatch.com the leading Cultural and Creative Industries financing intelligence platform in the MENA and Africa regions. CFW offers support to financiers and CC entrepreneurs on how to strategize and manage resources. She is also the initiator of the www.cciboost.com the cultural and creative enterprises global index.

She holds 4 Masters degrees in History, Archaeology, MBA and Heritage Management. She has work experience in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Prior to founding Culture Funding Watch she worked for UE, Oxfam GB, SNV, Arterial Network. She worked and lived in Tunisia, France, Egypt, Mali, Niger, South Africa, Laos and Myanmar.

She is the writer/contributor of several global reports : UNESCO special report on creative economy 2013, Compendium of cultural policies in the Arab region 2010, CS report on 2005 convention 2019, Cultural policy in the MENA region (UNESCO) 2019. She is a board member of the CS interim steering committee for the UNESCO 2005 convention and the Vice President of Tunisians startup association.