A Memorandum of Understanding was on Wednesday, August 25, signed between Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy and  Africa in Colors as both parties agreed to work hand in hand towards the promotion of Rwanda’s culture and creative industry ecosystem.

The pact will see the two entities join forces for capacity building and empowerment of creative industry players in Rwanda, export their talents, creative goods and services, and create an  environment that allows players to think, create, innovate and showcase their goods and services on global platforms.

Involved parties are convinced that the partnership will help strengthen the Rwandan culture and creative industry ecosystem, for it to be more professional, create jobs and generate revenues for those players, while contributing to Rwanda’s social economic development.

An institution which is responsible for the promotion of the artistic creations, literature and crafts drawn from Rwandan culture, Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy looks forward to getting the private sector and various organs involved in exploiting opportunities offered by national culture to boost the national economy.  

Amb. Robert Masozera, the body’s Director General, said that they are happy to work with Africa in Colors because their projects are in line with the vision and ambitions that the government has on boosting and promoting the culture and creative industry.

"As the government, we want to build a creative industry that is unique with Rwandan culture and which is competitive on the market, ready to play an instrumental role in branding our country. We are very proud of what they presented to us, now we are looking forward to seeing the implementation and we are ready to support them within our means,” Masozera told The New Times.

Raoul Rugamba, the CEO of Africa in Colors, said, through the agreement, they want to empower more culture and creative industry players in Rwanda, increase export of goods, services and local talents to the global markets as well as improve access to funding to creative industry players.

"Through this memorandum of understanding, we will be able to amplify what we were doing and bring it on a bigger scale,” Rugamba said.

"Coming together in this drive is so important because it requires more than one entity to achieve something big in this culture and creative industry ecosystem. So together, we will be able to build a better ecosystem,” he added.

The agreement is activated for the next five years.

Founded in 2018, African in Colours was initiated with the idea of positioning itself as a catalyst of building a pan African culture and creative industry ecosystem, able to create jobs and generate revenues for its players through a common culture and creative industry market.

The signed MoU follows another agreement previously signed between Africa in Colors and the Ministry of Youth and Culture.