Culture Legislation and Advocacy

GCF continues to provide the framework for the participation of our members and partners in several capacity building programmes and also in national cultural projects and programmes. We are glad that then Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts expressed the necessary confidence in GCF and brought us on board with other partners to work to ensure the passing of the Film Bill which is now an Act of Parliament (Act 935) and the establishment of the National Film Authority.
In October 2020, it came to the notice of GCF that Parliament was considering a Creative Arts Industry Bill 2020, under a Certificate of Urgency. GCF found this problematic since neither the Forum nor any of its network organisations and members had seen the current version of the bill which was before Parliament. Being an active partner in the stakeholder engagements on the previous drafts of the bill, GCF on 30th October submitted a petition on the omission of stakeholder engagement on the current bill to Parliament through the Speaker of Parliament and the Select Committee on Youth, Sports and Culture. 
Subsequent to the petition, a group of key stakeholders met the Parliamentary Select Committee on Youth, Sports and Culture. Fundamental adjustments made to the bill include:

• Creative Industries Agency instead of Creative Arts Agency
• The President should appoint another person as Board Chair instead of the sector minister.

Although the issue of Board Chair (stated in ‘i’ above) was changed as GCF by suggested, unfortunately, the name (suggested in ‘ii’) was not changed before the bill was passed. 
GCF continues to advocate for the passing of the LI for the Film Act 935 and Creative Arts Industry Act 1048, both of which had GCF members on the drafting committees.