New economic studies from Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe are putting numbers behind what Africa’s cultural and creative sectors have long demonstrated in practice: creativity is not only a source of cultural expression, but an increasingly important contributor to economic growth, employment and livelihoods.
Across Africa, Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) are generating significant economic value, creating employment and supporting livelihoods. Yet much of this activity remains poorly captured in national statistics and economic policy.
For decades, the contribution of the sector has largely been discussed through the language of heritage, identity and cultural expression. Those arguments remain important, but they are no longer sufficient on their own. If the creative economy is to be meaningfully considered alongside other productive sectors, policymakers, financiers and development partners also need evidence of its economic scale, employment contribution and structural characteristics.
Creative workers are frequently freelancers. Enterprises may operate from homes, shared spaces or informal markets. Income can move through mobile money, digital platforms, live events and short-term contracts. A filmmaker may work across production, directing and distribution; a musician may earn through performances, streaming and brand partnerships; a craft producer may sell directly to tourists or through informal markets. Much of this activity does not fit neatly into the categories through which national economies are traditionally measured.
The result is a familiar paradox: a sector that is economically active, yet whose full contribution remains underrepresented in many official statistical systems. This limited visibility can, in turn, contribute to the sector being overlooked or underprioritised in policy decisions, public investment and development funding.
Four new country studies commissioned under the Connect for Culture Africa (CfCA)—covering Ethiopia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe—seek to close that evidence gap. Across the four countries, the studies are organised around three questions that matter for policy and investment: What is the creative sector actually worth to the national economy? How many people does it employ, and who are they? And what does the sector’s heavy reliance on informal activity mean for policy? At the same time, informality, weak statistical systems, limited access to finance, inadequate infrastructure and intellectual property challenges continue to prevent much of that value from being fully recognised or captured.
Beyond the Numbers: Measuring an Economy That Does Not Always Look Like One
One of the strongest common findings across the four studies is the gap between what official statistics currently record and the economic activity that is actually taking place.
In Uganda, the study estimates that CCIs contribute approximately 3 percent of GDP, equivalent to about UGX 3.18 trillion, with more recent projections placing the figure at approximately UGX 4.2 trillion. Yet the conventional national accounts recorded only 0.1–0.2 percent under the narrower “Arts, Entertainment and Recreation” category. The study argues that much creative activity is instead captured under areas such as information,communication or trade.
A closer look at Uganda’s creative economy
Uganda’s creative economy is already contributing significantly to GDP, employment and livelihoods, yet much of this activity remains outside conventional economic classifications. Patrick Ssentongo’s feature in Daily Monitor takes a closer look, exploring what the evidence means for creative workers, the wider economy and the policy choices needed to unlock the sector’s potential.
Zimbabwe presents an even more striking illustration. Under the conventional Arts, Entertainment and Recreation classification, CCIs represented only 0.10 percent of GDP in 2024. When the researchers mapped creative activity against the eight domains of the UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics, however, they estimated the sector’s contribution at approximately US$2.7 billion, or 5.92 percent of GDP.
The study cautions that even this broader figure is likely conservative because several creative activities—including crafts, gaming, podcasting, cultural tourism and arts education—remain difficult to isolate within existing datasets.
In Zambia, official national accounts similarly attribute approximately 0.3 percent of GDP to arts, entertainment and recreation. The study’s adjusted estimate, incorporating informal, digital and indirect activity, places the creative economy’s broader footprint at 1.4–1.7 percent of GDP, equivalent to approximately ZMW 7.5–9.1 billion. The study explicitly presents this as a model-based estimate rather than a replacement for official statistics.
In Ethiopia, there is currently no distinct CCI category within the national accounts. The study therefore uses a WIPO assessment of copyright-based industries as its most structured macroeconomic proxy. That assessment placed copyright-based industries at 4.73 percent of GDP, with core copyright industries contributing 1.96 percent. The study treats this as a floor rather than a comprehensive measure of the wider creative economy because significant areas such as crafts, heritage tourism, live performance and much of the digital economy fall outside it.
These differences in measurement are not merely technical statistical problems. What is not counted is harder to finance, plan for and defend in national budget discussions. While the studies provide important evidence of the significant contribution of CCIs to economic development, the complexity of measuring the sector—particularly informal and under-recorded activity—means the figures and projections should be understood as evidence-based estimates rather than exact measures. Continued research and improved data collection will be essential, but the overall trend is clear: CCIs are making a significant economic contribution.
Employment: Where Creativity Meets the Labour Market
If GDP demonstrates the economic footprint of CCIs, employment reveals their social significance.
In Uganda, the available evidence places current CCI employment at approximately 386,000–400,000 people, while earlier labour force data recorded 280,263 people directly or indirectly engaged in cultural and creative activity. Design and creative services alone account for an estimated 108,971 workers, while cultural and natural heritage accounts for another 64,882.
The sector is particularly important for young people. Young people aged 18–30 account for 42 percent of CCI employment overall, rising to 96 percent in audiovisual and interactive media. Uganda’s film, music, visual arts and craft ecosystems illustrate how creative work is already functioning as an entry point into economic activity for a large young population.
The scale becomes visible in specific examples. Uganda’s audiovisual sector produces more than 200 low-budget feature films annually, while practitioners estimate direct employment at around 5,000 and indirect employment at 10,000 or more. In music, festivals such as Nyege Nyege and Bayimba generate thousands of temporary jobs across sound, security, crafts and other services.
Zambia’s study estimates that CCIs support 209,875 jobs through direct, indirect and induced employment—approximately 1.6 percent of national employment. Importantly, 68.7 percent of CCI workers are aged 15–35, while women account for 48.3 percent of the workforce. The sector also extends beyond major cities: 21 percent of activity is peri-urban and 15 percent rural.
Zimbabwe’s broader UNESCO-aligned estimate places CCI employment at approximately 22,223 people, or 0.7 percent of national employment. But the qualitative evidence adds an important dimension to this figure: 59.5 percent of surveyed creative workers are self-employed, 63.7 percent identify creative work as their main source of livelihood, and 62 percent report having no access to social security.
In Ethiopia, the newly compiled institutional dataset documents 9,702 CCI enterprises and 70,792 workers across the regions for which usable administrative data were available. The study is careful not to present these figures as a national census, noting that informal activity and uneven administrative coverage mean that substantial activity remains outside the dataset.
The quantitative evidence therefore points to a common reality: CCIs are employment-generating sectors, particularly for young people, women and workers who may face barriers to entry into more capital-intensive industries.
But the qualitative evidence tells us what those numbers mean in people’s lives.
Informality Is Not the Absence of an Economy
Across all four studies, informality emerges not simply as a regulatory problem but as a defining feature of how creative economies currently operate.
In Zambia, an estimated 72.6 percent of CCI workers operate informally. Fieldwork suggests that creative work provides genuine and often primary livelihoods for young people and women who may otherwise have limited access to formal employment. The study also finds that formalisation tends to follow market opportunity: enterprises are more likely to register when they gain predictable markets, institutional clients and structured value chains.
Zimbabwe tells a similar story. Creative work is highly fragmented, with many practitioners combining several jobs or creative activities to sustain livelihoods. More than half of respondents operate from home, while only 10.6 percent of organisations operate from a community centre or dedicated arts hub.
Ethiopia’s data show that formalisation is similarly uneven. While 72.6 percent of Addis Ababa institutions with recorded licensing status hold a valid business licence, only 24 percent of the Performance and Celebration domain is licensed—despite being the largest employment domain in the dataset. The study points to a mismatch between conventional licensing systems and the realities of freelance, project-based and seasonal creative work.
Uganda’s experience reinforces this point. Informal employment accounts for more than 70 percent of CCI jobs overall, while registration varies significantly between domains. Culture and tourism enterprises show relatively high registration rates, whereas visual arts and crafts, intangible cultural heritage and sports and recreation have considerably lower rates.
The implication across the four countries is clear: formalisation cannot simply mean bringing creative workers into systems designed for conventional businesses. The systems themselves need to recognise the realities of creative work.
From Studios and Markets to Digital Platforms
Another striking feature across the four studies is the changing relationship between creativity and technology.
Uganda provides perhaps the clearest illustration. The study estimates approximately 408,000 TikTok creator accounts, with a conservative estimate of more than US$10.2 million in collective annual income through this channel alone. Individual creators are already generating substantial platform revenues, demonstrating how a smartphone, connectivity and an audience can increasingly provide an entry point into international markets.
The pandemic accelerated this transition. When live events collapsed, musicians, comedians and other creators moved online. Those digital audiences and distribution channels subsequently became part of the sector’s continuing commercial infrastructure.
Zimbabwe’s study similarly notes that conventional trade statistics do not capture cultural services such as touring musicians, digital content distribution and diaspora-enabled sales. This creates a growing disconnect between the international reach of African creative work and what is visible in formal trade statistics.
Ethiopia’s audiovisual and interactive media domain is already demonstrating strong commercial growth. Documented profit in the sector increased by 266 percent, from ETB 39.6 million in 2020/21 to nearly ETB 145 million in 2022/23, while the sector accounted for 39.3 percent of all documented CCI profit in the dataset in 2022/23.
The digital shift therefore presents both an opportunity and a policy challenge. African creators can reach audiences beyond their national borders more easily than ever. But without stronger intellectual property systems, digital payment infrastructure, data, export support and appropriate financing, much of the value created may continue to leak away from creators and enterprises.
Four Countries, Four Different Starting Points
While the studies reveal strong regional patterns, they also demonstrate that there is no single African creative economy model.
Uganda enters the next phase with a significant policy opportunity. Government has approved a UGX 28 billion budget support commitment for CCIs for the 2026/27 financial year, compared with approximately UGX 4 billion allocated in FY2024/25. The study models this investment as potentially catalytic if deployed strategically toward skills, intellectual property and export readiness.
Zambia has strong evidence of increasing formal economic visibility. Tax collections from creative and arts-sector taxpayers increased from ZMW 160.9 million in 2021 to ZMW 833.6 million by 2025, while registered taxpayers in core subsectors grew from 3,154 in 2021 to 6,535 in 2024. Yet public CCI allocations remain below 0.1 percent of the national budget.
Zimbabwe has perhaps the clearest demonstration of the measurement challenge. A sector appearing to contribute only 0.1 percent of GDP under conventional classification emerges at nearly 6 percent when creative activity is mapped more comprehensively. The country already has an extensive policy architecture, including its National Cultural and Creative Industries Strategy, Music Strategy and Film Strategy. The challenge identified by the study is therefore less about policy recognition than implementation coherence.
Ethiopia is at an earlier stage of building the statistical architecture needed to understand the sector nationally. The study documents a substantial institutional creative economy but finds that 92 percent of recorded CCI institutions are located in Addis Ababa, reflecting both the city’s importance and the uneven availability of administrative data elsewhere. At the same time, heritage activity demonstrates significant economic potential outside the capital, particularly in regions such as Amhara.
From Evidence to Investment
Taken together, the four studies make a powerful argument for moving beyond the question of whether culture is economically valuable.
The evidence increasingly answers that question: it is.
The more urgent questions are how to measure that value consistently, how to finance creative enterprises appropriately, how to strengthen markets, how to protect creators’ rights, and how to design formalisation systems that respond to the way creative work actually happens.
The studies also provide an important lesson for the continental #1PercentForCulture agenda, a joint initiative with the African Union championing increased public investment in the sector. The case for investing in culture is already broad, spanning peace, social cohesion, democratic development and innovation. But its value also extends into the economy, with the sector contributing to GDP, employment, entrepreneurship, domestic revenue, youth livelihoods, women’s economic participation, digital exports and economic diversification.
From Research to Action
The launch of these four studies marks an important stage in building an evidence base for Africa’s creative economy. Their value lies not only in the figures they provide, but in what they reveal about the people and enterprises behind those figures.
The numbers tell us that creative economies are already generating value.
The qualitative evidence tells us how that value is generated: through freelancers working from home, young creators building audiences on digital platforms, musicians performing at festivals, craft producers connecting cultural knowledge to markets, filmmakers creating with limited resources, heritage communities sustaining local economies, and enterprises gradually moving toward formalisation when the right opportunities emerge.
Together, these perspectives challenge the idea that Africa’s creative economy is a future promise waiting to be unlocked.
It is already here. The task now is to count it, recognise it, invest in it and build the systems that allow it to grow.
Hear from Zimbabwe’s Lead Researcher
As part of the dissemination of the Zimbabwe study, we also invite readers to hear directly from Florence Mukanga Majachani, the study’s lead researcher, in an interview with BleswynKaysfilms. The conversation provides an opportunity to go beyond the statistics and hear directly from the researcher about what the findings mean for Zimbabwe’s creative economy, its workers and its policy environment.
▶ Listen to the interview on YouTube: Florence Majachani CfCA Zim Economic Contribution of the CCIs Lead Reasecher Interview
The Zimbabwe study has already moved through an important validation stage, bringing together cultural practitioners, policymakers, industry experts, researchers and government representatives to examine and validate the findings. The validation process is an important step towards establishing the study as a national reference point for policy, investment and development in Zimbabwe’s creative economy.
The four studies collectively offer something Africa’s creative sector would thrive on: an evidence base capable of translating the language of cultural value into the language of economic policy—without losing sight of the people, practices and cultural ecosystems that make that economy possible.
To access the reports, visit this link: https://cfcafrica.org/explore-publications/
