Cultural Policy for Zim at last

When the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture finally got round ,in 2005 , to bringing together prominent individuals in the arts and culture sector and the senior education officers to produce a cultural policy for Zimbabwe, after rounds of meetings, there was no senior officer in the ministry responsible for culture except mass games display officers and those seconded from the education department to oversee the remaining cultural functions such the selection of artists for airport arrivals of dignitaries ; the identification and engagement of choirs at burials of heroes at the National Heroes Acres ; the hiring of artists for national celebrations and the production of mass games for the independence day celebrations.
In this exercise no white paper was issued to invite or inform the nation about the national exercise of developing a national cultural policy. No public statements were made about the exercise and no invitations were made to national arts and culture associations and, institutions to make submissions in writing about issues they wanted the national cultural policy to address.
The exercise did not take cognizance of the presence of those who had played a part in the cultural policy formulation exercises of the 80s and 90s who were still in the country; records of dialogues initiated after the World Conference on Cultural Policies for Development as well as concerns raised on the need for harmonising cultural policies and legislation in the SADC.
This process also excluded stakeholders in other sectors of culture such as the heritage sector -the departments and parastatals of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Local Government, Rural and Urban Development and Tourism as well those concerned with the audio visual industry- the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting ; the Ministry of Legal Affairs that was responsible for copyright issues, and the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education that was responsible for teacher education and UNESCO. This has been confirmed by the absence of records I of invitations to these ministries, department and parastatals to submit what they thought should be featured in the national cultural policy.
The first consolidated cultural policy of Zimbabwe was launched in 2004. In 2009 the Ministry of Education, Sport Arts and Culture, which was responsible for the arts initiated a fresh revision of the policy after making the following realisations:
l There was need to cover more aspects of the arts and culture in the policy.
l There was need for conformity with best practices and international conventions.
l The need for a more participative involvement of the creative sector in the formulation of the policy for greater ‘buy in.’
l Growing recognition of the role of culture and the arts in nation building and developing coherence in the society and community.