(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Region’s premier cultural feast – CARIFESTA – was the subject of vigorous debate at the 20th Meeting of the Regional Cultural Committee (RCC) in Suriname on Wednesday as it grappled with the challenge of staging the Festival in the face of the global financial crisis.
The discussion also focused on the continued challenges faced in financing the permanent management structure for CARIFESTA; realizing more revenue for the Festival through increased merchandising and other forms of intellectual property value; and significantly expanding the promotion and marketing of the event.
With the Region having just concluded CARIFESTA X, hosted by Guyana in 2008, culture officials are calling for more attention to training and professional development within the Festival for artists, and for greater involvement of youth in the event.
While congratulations were extended to Guyana for hosting the festival against the odds, the RCC noted that there were still challenges in implementing the strategic plan and new governance model, and acknowledged the need to rebuild stakeholder commitment to the implementation of the new CARIFESTA model.
In this regard also, Chair of the RCC, Sydney Bartley, urged Directors of Culture to renew their efforts to build consensus, buy-in and commitment to the new CARIFESTA model among government officials and the artistic community.
The perennial issue of intellectual property and copyright was also debated and the RCC resolved to take steps at the national level in CARICOM, to ratify and deposit instruments of accession to international intellectual property agreements, including the Madrid Protocol on Trademarks, and the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and the Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. This would ensure better protection of the Region’s cultural expressions and intellectual property, and maximize the economic benefits that could be realized.
The general consensus of the meeting was that CARIFESTA was a very important platform for the growth of cultural industries in CARICOM, and that every effort must be made to ensure that this Festival was sustained and given the prominence it deserved regionally and internationally.
Some of the measures recommended to boost CARIFESTA included strengthening the capacity of the Interim Festival Directorate (IFD) to give leadership to the staging of the festival; shoring up media support by way of solid partnerships for the marketing and promotion of the Festival; branding the Festival with one permanent logo; and lobbying governments to incorporate in their planning a ‘serious’ budget for the staging of the Festival on an on-going basis.
The Meeting was advised that the proposed host country for CARIFESTA XI – the Commonwealth of the Bahamas – had again indicated its inability to host the Festival in 2010. The Bahamas had accepted responsibility to host the tenth staging of the festival in 2008 but had deferred until 2010.
The final decision on the date and host country for CARIFESTA XI will be taken at the Conference of Heads of Government next month in Guyana.
