Intellectual property, these are the often intangible assets that result from the expression of our creativity. They include such elements as patents and copyrights. For any creative these are the most valuable assets. They assign ownership of ideas and the ability to earn from them.
Now on the opposite of the spectrum is capital, this is the greatest need of creatives everywhere, especially in Zimbabwe. The capital gap is one that affects both emerging and established talent. These are sentiments that Farai Mudzingwa of Afro Music Obsevatory echoed in his interview on the Terminal One Africa podcast. Capital is scarce in the Zimbabwean artistic space and the value of the creative economy is often ignored.
This is not merely due to the state of the economy but a lack of institutions and policies that support the arts. As a creative in Zimbabwe, you have very limited options for funding. It is either you find the money yourself or you pursue grants, and for all the good grants have done the arts, they are still driven by the purposes of the donors and not the creatives. So what is the solution?
At Arterial Network Zimbabwe’s Creative Economy Conference in June, 2025, members of the financial sector had a presentation on how creatives could approach them for capital. Sadly, though, the offerings presented all required collateral on the part of creative. The issue being a lack of understanding of the artistic process by the finance world.
So how can we bridge this gap? Well intellectual property of course. More importantly a numbered value on that asset. The better established economies have major record labels, dedicated art collectors, and a long list of other benefactors that already understand the arts and readily fund them. This is however missing from Zimbabwe’s ecosystem.
There is an urgent need for the financial sector to employ evaluators who understand the sector, to bridge this gap. Better yet the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) is already there and has the relevant knowledge across all creative fields. It’s high time they collaborate with the financial sector to give creative ideas a value and remove the unnecessary and limiting barriers to financial backing.
In the world of music, catalogues have already been leveraged for capital injections, and equally so have been scripts and artworks. Precedent long set. So why can’t an album, a sculpture, or an art collection be the object of trade in funding related transactions in Zimbabwe? We already boast of uniquely Zimbabwean creations like the Shona sculptures and both Mbira music and the mbira itself.
It’s not just food for thought but an absolute necessity for the country as a whole. The arts need this to get on the right path.
As an industry, the arts in Africa have grown by 15% year on year for the last 5 years, and in Zimbabwe’s trade with the US they are the 4th most valuable commodity. We can’t ignore their economic value anymore.
In January of this year, a landmark partnership was signed between the Music In Africa Foundation and the African Union Commission. This was the AU’s formal recognition of music as a driver of youth employment, cultural identity, and economic growth. If it’s clear to the other African leaders that the arts have untold potential, then it should be clear to decision makers innZimbabwe. Let’s put a value on Zimbabwean creative products.
To add a last word to this, Music In Africa in one of the most important media platforms on the continent and they host the biggest music market in Africa. One of their founding directors, Eddie Hatitye, is a Zimbabwean. The network the country can tap into is already vast and just waiting on the initiative of policy makers.
