In this article, Chima NWOKOJI explores the similarities between CBN’s Creative Industry Financing Initiative and Nigeria’s $100 billion Creative Economy Growth Plan, highlighting potential dangers that arise from policy instability. In the global economy, the creative industries have become significant contributors to GDP and employment. Recognising this, governments worldwide have introduced initiatives aimed at harnessing the potential of their creative sectors.
Nigeria, with its vast cultural heritage and burgeoning creative sector, is no exception. Two prominent initiatives aiming to capitalise on this potential are the halted Creative Industry Financing Initiative (CIFI) by the CBN and the recently launched $100 billion Creative Economy Growth Plan by Nigeria’s Ministry of Art, Culture, and the Creative Economy. Despite being driven by different governmental bodies, both initiatives share similarities in their goals and approaches.
But there is a deliberate denomination of one in dollars as target revenue and the other in naira as seed funding. This, according to stakeholders, is to create confusion and create different impressions about what is essentially the same project. Although the CBN has halted intervention programmes, policy analysts believe that certain government initiatives ought to be institutionalised rather than duplicated to avoid wastage of resources.
Both initiatives are vulnerable to the risks posed by inconsistent government policies, often ref.
