Sustainable digital creative ecosystems in Africa-Europe relations: the role of universities
By Elise Cuny and Damien Helly
This article is based on a presentation made by Elise Cuny during the UNIMED WEEK in Brussels from 18 to 20 February 2025, as part of the session “Leveraging Science, Education and Culture for a Transformative Africa-Europe Partnerships” moderated by the Africa-Europe Foundation. The presentation draws from initial findings of a research project conducted by culture Solutions in partnership with the South African Cultural Observatory and funded by the Africa-Europe Foundation.
Cultural and Creative Industries’ potential for employment in a context of technological progress
According to the International Labor Organisation, Africa has the lowest unemployment rate globally among youth ages 15 to 24 (10.6% in 2021). However, these figures seem to hide that most of Africa’s youth either work informally, are underemployed or work in indecent conditions with low wages and no social safety net. “The African Development bank reported in 2016 that while 10 million to 12 million youth enter the workforce in Africa each year, only 3 million formal jobs are created annually, and it is common to see humanities and social sciences graduates driving taxis in Algiers and Cameroonian engineers ferrying passengers on commercial motorcycles in Douala.” (Foreign Policy, 2021)
Technological progress and digitalisation cannot be separated from wider access and revenues for CCIs (conversations with Alessandro Jedlowski, co-author of Communautés imaginées, imaginaires politiques. Les industries culturelles africaines au prisme des transformations numériques and Samuel Andrews, Law Professor expert in Intellectual Property and author of “Developing a Copyright Curriculum for Nigerian Universities for the Creative Digital Space”). For instance, Nollywood’s growth and success emerged in the early 1990s, when VHS tapes became the main source of content production and distribution in the films or audio-visual industry.
The internet has led to enormous production and revenue progress and access. Digital platforms make it easier to quantify data and, when the intention is there, to create new revenue streams for artists. On the global level, digitalisation is transforming the creative industries: in 2023, streaming services accounted for more than two thirds (67.3%) of global music market revenues. For the Nollywood film industry, digital streaming has also brought tremendous advantages like combating piracy and overcoming the negative impact of the Covid pandemic.
These global trends however unequally impact African economies based on the internet penetration rate – that ranged from 10.4% in Central African Republic to 77.3% in Botswana in 2024. The rapid growth of Africa’s population and urbanisation will significantly impact digital access and infrastructure. Between 2020 and 2050, Africa’s urban population is projected to double from 717 million to 1.4 billion, making it the second-largest urban population globally after Asia (OECD, 2025). This rapid urbanisation will drive greater internet penetration and digital tools adoption, necessitating a proactive and anticipatory approach to infrastructure, connectivity, digital literacy and policy development.
Cultural and creative industries account for an estimated 50 million jobs worldwide and employ more young people (15–29-year-olds) than other sectors. They attract talented and imaginative youth who are increasingly encouraged by international donors to turn to the entrepreneurial model: more and more, we hear the term “cultural entrepreneur”, capturing a variety of socio-economic situations and mindsets. SMEs -across sectors- represent 95% of all companies and generate 80 percent of jobs across the African continent. This is an economic reality to have in mind if we want to act on better jobs and revenues.
CCIs offer significant job opportunities for youth and young entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa. The level of investment in CCIs reflects the sector’s potential for revenue generation and employment growth. The Creative Africa Nexus Programme (CANEX), launched by Afreximbank in 2021 to showcase African talent and support exports, saw its funding double in 2024, alongside the announcement of an expansion of Afreximbank’s funding capacity for African CCIs to $2 billion. Additionally, the African Development Bank has recognised CCIs as a key driver of sustainable job creation, particularly in the fashion industry, which it estimated in 2016 could generate 25 million jobs over the following decade (Fashionomics, 2016). At the same time, “replicability of some creative work and the wide online digital service industry that sprung up around the cultural and creative industries make certain areas of production and generation an easy target for AI automation” (SACO, 2024), threatening the promise of jobs’ creation.
To be competitive in our changing world, African creatives need to be well armed with greater digital skills and tools. Technology and digital tools must be at the heart of their businesses if they want to amplify their voices and join the global fashion sphere.
– Bintou Sadio Diallo, a cultural and creative industries expert at the African Development Bank.
Connecting education, skills and employment in creative sectors: universities in ecosystems
By designing academic programmes looking at digital impact on CCIs and fostering new creative programmes, African and European Universities can champion tomorrow’s skilled job creation. They can contribute to safeguard and promote cultural and natural heritage. They can ensure an ethical ownership of intangible heritage through locally designed data management programmes.
UNIMED, the Union for Mediterranean Universities, is now opening partnerships opportunities to Sub-Saharan African Universities with which they apply jointly for Erasmus+ grants. Culture and Creative Industries (CCIs) can benefit from this new collaboration space. The sector has great potential to bridge gaps in education, skills, and youth employment—an idea strongly emphasised by Universities during UNIMED WEEK. They expressed a keen interest in strengthening ties with industries and developing academic programmes designed to enhance employability.
To bridge education, sustainable employment and fair revenues, academic partnerships should continue to focus on identifying the skills and jobs that are missing for CCIs in Sub-Saharan Africa and design academic programmes around those. Education and vocational training on technological, digital, business skills and on the legal, policy framework of digital transformations are essential. Universities can serve as catalysts for the emergence of thriving cultural and creative innovation clusters and ecosystems, connecting education with concrete career opportunities in start-ups and emerging companies, talent with investment, and culture with tech sectors. The 2018 report by the EU OMC (Open Method of Coordination) working group of Member States’ experts highlighted the benefits of ecosystems in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship within the Cultural and Creative Sectors (CCS). It also underscored the crucial role of “support structures” in ensuring that innovation and business development respect the uniqueness of cultural content. The report defined support structures as “clusters, incubators, accelerators, creative hubs, networks, digital platforms, professional organisations, co-working spaces, creative labs, makerspaces, and fabrication labs.” Among the examples presented, the report mentioned the role of universities, including projects like Creative Lenses (2015–2019), which was funded by Creative Europe.
Some examples from other actors or geographical areas show the way towards a better link between digital skills, culture as well as involvement of private sector with prospects of jobs’ creation:
- HeritageWatch.AI (founded by Aliph, Iconem, Microsoft and Planet) a new player in heritage protection, that use artificial intelligence to assess the condition of heritage sites and anticipate threats.
- Data4UA a project for “Capacity building for Data-Driven Cultural Heritage eManagement in Ukraine”, co-funded by the EU and bridging business and academia for data ecosystems.
Thematic priorities for universities’ engagement with African creative industries
1. Monitor and follow African cultural and technological trends, values, and diversity
One example of cultural trends having real traction on African and global digital audiences is the South African musical genre Amapiano. It is the fastest growing recording industry in the world, along with Afrobeats. Many other examples can be found in fashion, visual arts and film.
Recently, Lacina Koné, Director General, Smart Africa declared that “Africa seeks to create the most useful artificial intelligence, not the most powerful.” Risks of non-investment in AI are evident and could lead to certain economic decline and an increasing technological dependence on the United States and China. These risks are common to the EU and Africa.
A report investigating the impact of AI on the creative community in Kenya reveals that, of the 130 creatives surveyed (129 of whom are familiar with AI and 112 use it in their work), 73% of the AI tools they use are from the US, 4% from Europe, 2% from China, and none are from Kenyan AI products. When put in perspective with the latest Creative Economy Outlook from UNCTAD (2024), the signal for investment is strong: the most exported creative services in 2022 were software services (41.3%).
African and European Universities can be innovative in looking at the softwares that young creatives need and tap into the continent’s brains to produce homegrown softwares tailored to the needs and economic realities of the market, taking into account the cultural and linguistic diversity of the continents.
2. Develop legal expertise to create the conditions for fair revenues and intellectual property
Legal challenges emerging with digital transformations have direct repercussions on the rights and revenues of artists and creators but they also touch broadly upon the equity and respect of African cultures and the value of products and services. Faced with these extremely fast evolving challenges, African and European Universities could work together to design flexible, adaptable programmes (in line with the AU-EU innovation agenda calling for a revision of curricula) looking at legal challenges for CCIs (Intellectual Property Law, Copyright regimes, Data management). By fostering exchanges and joint programmes, both continents could step up their education systems and research capacities. This would benefit both the public and private sectors, from both continents by:
- establishing peer-to-peer learning networks between and among African and European university professionals and other professionals investing in skills enhancement in their respective value chain
- contributing to the upskilling of teachers, professors and mentors,
- re-balancing the location of Intellectual Property owners (in case some African authors’ or creators’ rights are managed by Europe-based organisations)
- opening new fields of research relevant to current economic contexts (notably on the problematic of data extractivism),
- protecting artists and creators,
- creating new jobs along the value chains of CCIs.
3. Design new curricula and learning programmes to support creative sectors’ structuration
Cultural actors (artists, intermediaries, managers) are on the forefront of the sectors’ structuration and regional integration. They do not wait for the policy framework nor the investment to be present to strive. Universities can be valuable allies in ensuring that legal, business and policy knowledge and skills are made available for more youth to contribute to the structuration, growth and integration of the creative sector and industries on both continents.
Innovative, fit for employment and flexible curricula and learning programmes for CCIs should include:
- Technological and digital skills: to ensure proper and sustainable revenues from CCIs, Universities and schools will be essential in providing students and entrepreneurs with skills that can ensure promotion, distribution and payment of cultural goods and services. Such skills cover for instance coding, IT infrastructure management, AI, data analysis, digital marketing. Research in Kenya has shown how creatives benefit from using AI tools for “inspiration, administrative work, creative, marketing…”. But economies would also benefit from tech skills allowing for more homegrown softwares and products to be commercialised.
- Legal skills: as mentioned above, we see important demand from experts and professionals to adapt the legal training to new realities. Cooperation between Universities in Europe and Africa offers great perspectives in adapting curricula to new digital challenges and offering locally relevant research opportunities to shape international regulations to African and European experience of cultural diversity.
- Business and entrepreneurial skills: African-European cultural cooperation has long focused on the phase of creation. Partners are increasingly raising attention on the need to support pre and post production jobs, which will be essential in building an autonomous, strong and sustainable cultural sector. European cultural actors and programmes (Procultura, ACP-EU Culture) have taken the turn supporting cultural entrepreneurship, but essential jobs are still left out of the training support (sales agents, commercial roles…). Universities can be knowledge brokers and systematise the identification of skills and jobs in a more flexible approach linking students and job markets.
- Policy skills: equipping policy makers in understanding the management of cultural policies, the emerging challenges and the value of culture for societies is essential to realise and accomplish CCIs’ full economic, social and cultural values. Future policy makers can greatly benefit from joint programmes looking at cultural policy management.
Conclusion
Investing in infrastructure and connectivity (the core of EU Global Gateway strategy) matters to Africa and Europe’s future prosperity. However, if this approach is considered as an end in itself (or as a GDP contribution-focused strategy to counter balance Chinese policies), it will fail. To be sustainable, investments in Africa’s digitalisation (including in the creative sectors) ought to be anchored in a deeply meaningful long-term intention aligned with the values of international cultural relations and existing multilateral conventions on cultural cooperation.
This is why upskilling and education are essential in structuring a sector and building long-term partnerships. The digitalisation of cultural and creative sectors offer tremendous opportunities to African youth, it can foster further connections between Africa and Europe’s civil societies as well as across both continents. Digital culture has already become a cement that further integrates African regions and the continent as a whole, in line with the Agenda 2063. African and European universities can act as strong allies in this transformation process by contributing to skilled job creation for youth in the CCIs and equipping both continents to tackle legal challenges emerging from digital transformations.
culture Solutions aims to put the digital and technological dimensions more prominently on the EU agenda of cultural relations and cultural diplomacy, and ensure creative and fruitful crossovers between arts, science, technology and digital expertise. See more articles and podcasts produced by culture Solutions’ members on the links between international cultural relations (ICR), Digitalisation & internet.
Stay tuned for the next article: How can CCIs be integrated in the AU-EU innovation agenda?
The views expressed in this article are personal and are not the official position of culture Solutions as an organisation.