Context
Spanning a wide range of fields – from architecture and music to advertising- the cultural and creative industries are an exciting economic sector. People across these industries include freelance artists and creative entrepreneurs who have set up micro-enterprises. The cultural and creative industries are, of course, characterised by creative minds creating things. The definition of creativity builds on the interplay between human creativity, ideas, intellectual property, knowledge, and technology, while the creative economy encompasses all the industries relying on creative activities.
The cultural and creative industries catalyse a fast-growing, innovative, knowledge-based economy when supported by ade-quate policy instruments. They are among the fastest-growing sectors in the global economy. It is now recognized that the creative economy offers a feasible and sustainable development option to all countries and developing economies, and the CCIs are now part of the portfolios of many Development Agencies worldwide. However, more data and innovative and multidisci-plinary policy responses are needed to enhance the development impacts of the creative sector. One of the most critical issues in developing policies towards a healthy functioning economic growth is mapping and identifying the area. Since most countries have industry-based approaches, cultural and creative industries must be defined well to become a part of a country’s industrial policy thus linked to the general budget. This can only be possible if the implementation regards already existing data and adapts to the language of industrial policy making.
Since 2015, the issuance of national strategies, policies and regulations of the sector has rapidly spread throughout the de-veloping world. Most respondent countries established a specific strategy or national plan to support and develop creative indus-tries at the national level. In 2021, in the context of implement-ing General Assembly resolution 74/198 on the International Year of Creative Economy, UNCTAD conducted an online survey on the creative economy and crea-tive industries. The responses from 33 countries 9 provide insights into how the creative economy has become a sector of growing social, political, and economic signif-icance at the national level. Türkiye has organized several activi-ties with the support of the Istanbul Development Agency (İST-KA), Izmir Development Agency (İZKA) and Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Directorate of Copyright to raise awareness sus-tainability-related issues in CCI. Key cultural institutions in Türki-ye have followed and been part of the CCI debate over the last 18 years. Most of the time, during collaboration efforts among cultural and creative firms, there is always a justification of the side they represent, whether "upstream" or "downstream". The below-mentioned critique of "not de-fined as a holistic and coor-dinated area" hints at a more efficient policy development model towards the representation of CCI rather than focusing on one aspect. The Imple-mentation Plan Türkiye’s cultural and creative industry relat-ed policy framework is shaped in engagement with transna-tional institutes including UN institutions such as UNCTAD, UNESCO (National Committee representing several Con-vention Türkiye has ratified including the 2005 Convention on Diversity of Cultural Expression which protects the CCI actors or UCCN Creative City Network, which is represented with several cities in Türkiye) and regional links to EU pro-grams.
One of the most critical challenges Türkiye’s economy faces in economic and social value added is there is no distinction be-tween the juristic form of the "for profit" and "not for profit" activities. With the growing interest in "impact" in the econo-mies, institutions with a good capacity towards creating value need to establish associations or foundations which are, by defi-nition, representations of altruism rather than economic repre-sentation. In this respect, most of the pro-duction in "upstream" areas struggle towards the proper legal model.
Approach
The project aims to contribute to designing the most appropriate policy framework to support the growing creative industries in Türkiye. It will create an evidence base for policymakers to sup-port creative and cultural sectors and propose strategic routes to enhance the sector’s values. It will create solid policy foundations on which the creative and cultural sectors can foster and thrive. The project aims to unveil the structural situation and unlock the potential growth of the Creative Economy in Türkiye. It will con-tribute to creating an evidence-based policy that can support a future-proof Creative Economy which can foster technological, economic, and social changes.
Overall Objective:
• To unveil the structural situation and unlock the poten-tial growth of the Creative Economy in Türkiye. It will contribute to creating an evidence-based policy that can support a futureproof Creative Economy which can fos-ter technological, economic, and social changes.
The specific objectives of the project are:
• To increase the engagement capacity of the MoIT and local institutions in Türkiye, Project beneficiaries specif-ically MoIT DGDA, as the ERA and implementing body, and İstanbul Development Agen-cy and İzmir Develop-ment Agency, in supporting the Creative Economy
• To support and encourage the targeted actors in the creative economy sectors to engage with the related IPA III interventions and Union Pro-grammes.
To achieve that, the project will:
• Research and produce evidence on the Creative Econo-my in Türkiye.
• Design and deliver a tailored capacity-building pro-gramme for both the policymakers and the actors of the Cultural and Creative Industries.
• Formulate policy directions and identify adequate policy instruments.
• Promote and enhance the profile of Türkiye’s creative economy through a series of networking activities and collaboration connections.
To fully unlock the potential of the Creative Economy in Türkiye and foster its sustainability, the strategy will have to address the priority of the sectors’ vulnerabilities through disaggregated analysis to understand the diversity of the sub-sectors beyond generalisation under contribution to GDP. The Creative economy comprises different economic niches with their growth potential. The pandemic hugely impacted the vulnerable workforce (infor-mal status and low pay), and the continuous economic crisis takes a toll on the sector. Addressing the vulnerability will require thoroughly analysing the workforce, its skills, working patterns, and needs. It also means fostering innovation and creating more opportunities.
To consolidate a vision for the sector that will be future proof, the project will integrate and emphasise the following central sector’s drivers: (1) Harness the capacity for innovation, increas-ing competitiveness and responding to market’s demands, (2) Strengthen resilience and address the sector’s structural vulnera-bilities, (3) Foster technological transition and support the evolu-tion of the value chain leading to a transition to a service driven economy with increased dema-terialisation of content, (4) Unlock new financial and economic models
The project recognises the importance of establishing defini-tions and classifications of international standards, in line with global organisations like IDB, UNCTAD, UNESCO, and WIPO. That means concep-tualising the Creative Economy in ways that con-sider national and regional economic structure towards a more harmonised concept and scope for the creative economy and industries.