Poor co-ordination hampers arts sector funding: Mari

NATIONAL Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) director Elvas Mari has said moves to revamp the Zimbabwe arts sector that has for a long time lacked funding despite having a lot of talent are at an advanced stage.

Speaking to NewsDay in a wide ranging interview, Mari said they were working tirelessly to revamp the sector and it would soon have a face-lift as part of their 2018 strategic plan.

"As National Arts Council of Zimbabwe we are committed to uplift the face of the arts sector in Zimbabwe.

"There is a lot of movement that is taking place involving several stakeholders, among them United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation," Mari said.

"We are working towards modalities to have proper structures that enable the proper funding of the arts sector, whereby there will be clear pointers and statistics in terms of how much the sector would have contributed to the country's gross domestic product, making people aware of the value of the sector to the nation."

Mari said poor co-ordination and segmentation had negatively affected the funding model of the local arts sector.

"The funding of the arts sector in Zimbabwe has been segmented and there is no co-ordinated way of supporting the sector," he said.
"We need to bring funders in a co-ordinated way and if we do it in such a way, we will be like those countries that we admire."

Mari dismissed claims that NACZ had failed the nation in terms of running the arts sector, arguing that as much as they were associated with failure in the sector, people must appreciate their efforts.

"We might be criticised as NACZ, but what is on the ground can support that we have not failed at all. NACZ's contribution in fulfilling its role of promoting and developing the industry can be captured by some events that have been happening in the sector for the past decades," he said.

"Some of the highlights of the growth and importance of the arts and culture sector have been shown by Zimbabwe being the founding member of International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (Ifacca) in Canada.

"This has helped the council remain connected to the international community through Ifacca.

"Last year the department of immigration communicated to NACZ that it required all international artistes coming to Zimbabwe to have police clearance from their countries of origin.

"Having noticed the challenges that the police clearance issue was causing in the sector, NACZ engaged Immigration department to revert to the usual arrangements where immigration did its own security checks on international artistes."

Mari said with what has been tabled as part of their strategy, they were on the right track in endeavours to promote the sector.

"As much as we appreciate the role of the media in promoting the sector, sometimes we need to have our side heard before being held responsible," Mari said.