Second Arterial Network Biannual Conference takes place

After its launch on Gorée Island in Senegal in March 2007, the Arterial Network hosted its second Biannual Conference at the Goethe Institute in Johannesburg from 19-21 September 2009. 114 delegates from 28 African countries as well as a further 17 participants from mainly European countries attended the two-day event, more than double the number of delegates and countries that attended the founding conference.

The Conference achieved its five primary aims: to build support for the Arterial Network (all 28 countries present now have a representative to help build the Arterial Network in their country); to give strategic direction to Arterial Network for the next few years; to adopt a broad constitutional framework to consolidate the Network’s organisational form; to elect a new, more representative Steering Committee and to prepare delegates for participation in the World Summit on Arts and Culture.

Korkor Amarteifio, Associate Director of the Institute for Music Development in Ghana set the tone for the conference with her keynote address: The African creative sector: acting locally to be globally assertive. As a model of a continental civil society movement in the creative sector, Ilona Kish outlined the structure and activities of Culture Action Europe. The rest of the time was spent in working groups, discussing and devising concrete recommendations for Arterial Network to take further with regard to building advocacy networks, undertaking campaigns to improve the creative industries and status of the artist on the continent, ensuring greater benefits for Africa (rather than only South Africa) from the 2010 FIFA World Cup and building a festival and touring network.

The Conference was made possible through the support of Art Moves Africa, Doen Foundation, Pro Helvetia, Stromme Foundation, Artema Institute for Arts Management and the Goethe Institute, with other major Arterial funding partners – HIVOS and Africalia – also present at the conference.

The three Task Team members present at the Conference were re-elected to a new 10-person Steering Committee to provide continuity. Each country elected one representative to a “General Council” which then divided into the five African regions, with each region electing two members to the Steering Committee. The final result was a victory for democracy with an equal number of men and women, a balance of youth and experience, and representation from all four major language groups: Portuguese, Arabic, French and English.

Members of the Steering Committee are, North Africa: Salma Said (Egypt) and Khadija el Bennaoui (Morocco); East Africa: Joy Mboya (Kenya) and Sarah Nsigaye (Uganda); West Africa: Tade Adekunle (Nigeria) and Michael Soumah (Senegal); Central Africa: Telesphore Mba Bizo (Cameroon) and Patrick Mudekereza (DRC); Southern Africa Mulenga Kapwepwe (Zambia) and Filimone Meigos (Mozambique).

In August 2007, the Arterial Network Task Team planned that the second conference would take place just prior to the World Summit on Arts and Culture in Johannesburg to help to ensure a significant African presence at this tri-annual event hosted by the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA).

Hosted by the National Arts Council of South Africa – a member of IFACCA – the World Summit was a triumph for Africa with more than half the 450 delegates present coming from 31 African countries and more than 40% of the 57 speakers were Africans.

Arterial Network made a significant contribution to the World Summit through the number of African delegates it brought to the event, the preparation of these delegates to participate effectively in the World Summit’s deliberations, by helping to identify speakers and through the head of its secretariat who also served as the programme director for the Summit.

One of the legacies that the Summit would like to leave is an IFACCA African chapter i.e. a network of arts public funding agencies on the African continent.

The next World Summit on Arts and Culture will be held in early October 2011, in Melbourne, Australia to coincide with the tenth anniversary of IFACCA.

Arterial Network will work towards a significant African presence at this event – and other international cultural forums too - to sustain African intervention in global cultural discourse and to ensure that creative practitioners and leaders on the continent are engaged in ongoing dialogue with their international counterparts.

From the ARTerial network, Sept 2009 newsletter

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