adminimplementation of the Unesco 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression.
In the final communiqué of the workshop, the festival managers indicated that the Zimbabwe Festival Network was a professional association with the following objectives:
- To network Zimbabwean festivals operating within and across various genres in order to share knowledge, expertise, programming content and best practices;
- To consolidate and expand existing circuits and to develop and promote new circuits of discipline based and multi-disciplinary and regionally based festivals as means of distributing Zimbabwean creative work and of providing longer income-generating opportunities for artists;
- To build and consolidate financial, organisational and leadership capacity within Zimbabwean festivals in order to ensure their effectiveness and sustainability;
- To promote and defend freedom of creative expression in Zimbabwe;
- To help market Zimbabwean festivals nationally, regionally and internationally both as platforms for Zimbabwean creative expression and for increasing markets and income from such festivals;
- To advocate and lobby on behalf of Zimbabwean festivals for an enabling environment that supports the flourishing of cultural festivals;
- To seek and promote mutually beneficial international partnerships for Zimbabwean cultural festivals;
- To research and provide information, tools and ideas that will enhance Zimbabwean cultural festivals.
In the same communiqué, the festival managers thanked Nhimbe Trust, the convener of the workshop, Unesco for funding the workshop and the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe for providing guidance and valuable collaboration in hosting the event.
During the workshop Mr Nicholas Moyo, the deputy director of the National Arts Council, made a presentation on marketing and managing of cultural festivals. The festival managers also recognised the importance of the Unesco Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.
They also stressed that cultural festivals should be considered as “enablers of communal celebration, well spring of creativity and a vehicle for inter-generational transmission of cultural heritage as articulated in the Unesco 2003 Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and as inherent in the programmes of the Zimbabwe National Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee.”
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