As advanced economies across the world have witnessed a move away from manufacturing industries in the last three decades, the Creative and Cultural Industries have become an emerging part of the knowledge economy. Creative industries provide new opportunities for developing countries to be part of high-growth areas of the world economy in a contemporary world dominated by images, sounds, texts and symbols. Jordan has limited natural resources such as oil and minerals and has very few strengths in manufacturing. Therefore, its main opportunities for becoming competitive within the world economy lie within its knowledge-based industries.
Overview of CCIs in Jordan
Currently, Audio Visual, Creative Services, Performing Arts and Visual Arts groupings encompass the majority of the creative industries in Jordan; but the potential for these industries to contribute to Jordan’s knowledge economy is yet to be realised. With its rich culture and abundant pool of creative talent, Jordan certainly has the potential to develop its economy through such industries in addition to other knowledge-based industries. Jordanians also demonstrated their interest in the cultural and creative industries during the Covid-19 restrictions. Many sought out cultural goods such as books, newspapers and magazines, film and television producHons, digital media, recorded music, and diverse kinds of virtual access to the visual and performing arts. This suggests that there is a strong appetite for the development of CCIs in Jordan.
This potential was recognised by the United Nations agency UNIDO, in collaboration with the European Union and other entities. In 2014, they initiated a program for the development of the Cultural and Creative Industries. A “bottom-up” selection process led to the selection of 2 clusters in Jordan: Fashion in Amman, and Ceramics in Amman. The use of the cluster approach in the CCIs rapidly proved to be very effective, since it preserved and safeguarded the historical heritage of each place whilst valorising these unique elements of the companies. This evidences that when sufficient support has been granted to CCIs at the micro-level, they have been effective in contributing to the knowledge economy.
CCIs in relation to Jordan’s economy
In addition to the knowledge economy, it is also worth considering the wider impact that CCIs can have on the growth of the creative industries’ ability to add value to the rest of the Jordanian economy. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) report, the copyright industries can add a lot of value to other economic sectors since 1 JD of copyright output directly generates 30JD of output into the Jordanian economy. These findings justify the need for greater investment into CCIs due to the wider economic benefits that they would likely bring to Jordan.
CCI challenges in Jordan
Whilst King Abdullah wishes for Jordan to become a regional hub for information technology and other creative arts industries, a more effective framework is needed to realise the potential that CCIs have of contributing to Jordan’s knowledge economy. With some exceptions such as the Jordanian film industry, the creative industry does not receive sufficient financial support to allow a creative entrepreneurial ecosystem to thrive.
The infrastructure of the cultural sector is particularly lacking outside of Amman since places outside of the capital receive an even less adequate level of cultural investment. Ultimately, this can be attributed to the weak activation of clear national policies and strategies for the cultural movement. As a result, there is insufficient coordination between the parties concerned with cultural issues; which thus means there is an absence of a clear, universal strategy to connect creators and makers across Jordan. This means the economic opportunities that can be generated through an entrepreneurial ecosystem of partnerships in Jordan’s CCIs are not being fulfilled.
Instead, creators and makers find it challenging to network and share their ideas as well as their experiences of working in the CCIs. This highlights the need for more offline forums such as the Meet Ups at the C-Hub project in Amman, where makers use a space to network and share their challenges with each other with a view to becoming more competitive players within the CCIs. This would form part of a wider bottom-up process, where creative entrepreneurs are able to help artists and creative businesses to help them overcome the challenges and risks associated with a start-up business.
Finally, overall, given Jordan’s rich culture and the passion for CCIs amongst its population, intellectuals, creators and artists have received insufficient state support to actualise the country’s potential in this industry. This emphasises the need for more investment into the infrastructure of CCIs, and also into up-and-coming creators and artists so that Jordan can become a bigger global competitor in the knowledge economy.
Tom Anson
