As a heritage consultant and President of the NGO TOWARA-BENIN (the only Beninese NGO accredited by UNESCO), I hold a Specialized Higher Diploma in Finance and Management Control from the University of Abomey-Calavi, obtained in 2007.
While the global economy redefines itself at the crossroads of the intangible and authenticity, Benin stands at a pivotal moment. A land of Vodoun, ancient monarchies, rare living arts, and a youth brimming with creativity, our nation possesses an extraordinary treasure. Yet a paradox endures: this exceptional heritage remains an economic giant asleep. For too long, culture has been relegated to the sidelines as a mere afterthought or decorative budget line.
The ambition we carry for the 2035 horizon is bold, systematic, and sovereign: to make culture the fourth pillar of Benin’s economy. This is no longer about nostalgia for the past but about structuring a productive sector that generates wealth, decent jobs, and territorial innovation. To achieve this systemic transformation, eight major initiatives must be launched.
1. The legal imperative: lifting artists out of precarity through law
A strong economy cannot stand on legal quicksand. While Benin has recently made regulatory strides, the urgency now demands a higher threshold. The status of artists and cultural workers, as well as the creation of the Maison des Artistes, cannot depend on the fragility of decrees—subject to reversals and political agendas.
The sector’s growth requires laws passed by the National Assembly, the only true guarantors of lasting legal stability and enforceable force. Absent an immediate framework law, rigorous and accelerated implementation of recent decrees should serve as a provisional bridge.
It is time to enshrine the social protection of creators, modernize copyright governance, grant substantial tax incentives to private investors, and legally recognize the professions of intangible cultural heritage. Securing the artist means securing investment.
2. Human capital: rebuilding elite cultural engineering
The lifeblood of this creative economy lies in its human resources. Amateurism must give way to elite professionalization. Benin must launch a massive training plan covering not only artistic disciplines but also cultural management, entrepreneurship, conservation-restoration techniques, and digital technologies applied to heritage. Every commune should become an incubator for local talent, aligning training with regional specificity.
3. Knowledge sanctuaries: specialized schools and centers of excellence
To institutionalize this transmission, the country’s academic architecture must rest on three pillars:
- National Higher School of Arts: To forge the avant-garde of contemporary scenes (dancers, choreographers, scenographers, technical directors).
- Higher Institute of Cultural Heritage: A cutting-edge scientific hub dedicated to safeguarding tangible and intangible heritage, museography, and archives.
- Academy of Arts and Traditions of Benin: A sacred space for cultural diplomacy and transmission, where master holders document and legitimize ancestral knowledge for future generations.
4. Physical footprint: deploying world-class infrastructure
Creativity demands spaces worthy of its ambition. Benin’s territorial network must be strengthened with modern, versatile, and decentralized infrastructure. From communal cultural centers to regional theaters, digital creation complexes, and artisan villages, every department should have the tools needed for creation, production, dissemination, and public engagement.
5. War chest: revolutionizing access to funding
Audacious art without financial means remains an illusion. We advocate a three-dimensional financial architecture to propel the creative economy:
- National Cultural Development Fund: Focused on pure creation, research, and international mobility.
- Creative Economy Window: Within financial institutions, offering preferential loans, guarantee mechanisms, and loans tailored to the unique cycles of artistic production.
- Public-private cultural investment fund: Capable of raising capital from the state, local authorities, the private sector, and the diaspora.
6. Sectoral approach: from craftsmanship to visual arts
Benin’s cultural sector suffers from fragmentation that dilutes its impact. Whether in cinema, fashion, music, dance, or literature, each discipline must be structured as an autonomous industrial sector. This requires a decade-long strategic plan, training roadmaps, dedicated distribution channels, and aggressive marketing strategies for regional and international markets.
7. Intangible heritage: unlocking Benin’s unique treasure
Our masks, ritual rhythms, initiation tales, and artisanal know-how are not mere folkloric objects; they are invaluable intangible assets. By investing in digital archiving of collections, labeling heritage festivals, and creating national cultural itineraries, Benin can transform living traditions into powerful drivers of local development and tourism attractiveness.
8. Strategic convergence: culture, tourism, and agro-industry
The global appeal of Beninese identity hinges on an organic symbiosis between culture, experiential tourism, and agro-industry. By valorizing local products through our aesthetic lens, designing territorial excellence labels, every region can turn its culture into an economic prosperity argument. The tourist of 2035 will not merely seek a landscape; they will seek to live a culture, taste a terroir, and inhabit a story.
Toward the 2035 milestone
Building tomorrow’s Benin demands breaking free from the rentier paradigms of the past. By 2035, our country has the historic opportunity to emerge as a beacon of the creative economy in sub-Saharan Africa.
This transition is not poetic; it is a matter of high state strategy. By empowering artists with protective and ambitious legislation, financing boldness, and sanctifying our memories, we will make culture the engine of sustainable, inclusive growth—proudly rooted in Beninese genius. The time for decree promises is over; it is time for sanctification through law and decisive action.
