Unlocking the Potential of Africa’s Creative Industries: Market Scan of Opportunities for U.S. Investment and Partnership

Prosper Africa is the U.S. Government initiative to increase trade and investment between African nations and the United States.

CrossBoundary Advisory assessed trends, opportunities and obstacles for U.S. private sector investment and partnerships within Africa’s creative economies, which includes music, television and film production, fashion, arts, sports, and video games. The study sought to quantify the size of the sector today and future growth expectations. The sector study focused on three key markets with the most promise for U.S. private sector engagement and that are representative of the broader opportunities across Africa. The markets of focus were Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.

As part of the study, CrossBoundary Advisory also sought to identify current or future transaction opportunities for U.S. companies in the creative economies space. This pipeline of opportunities was passed along to Prosper Africa along with recommendations for how Prosper Africa/USG could engage with these opportunities. Finally, this study also evaluated existing U.S. Government initiatives and tools that were most relevant to the sector to help the Secretariat determine how best to coordinate and support these activities.

CrossBoundary Advisory combined extensive data analysis, interviews with experts & stakeholders and literature reviews across six creative industries; music, television and film production, art, fashion, sports, and gaming to analyze trends, challenges, and opportunities in the sector. CrossBoundary identified high-level interventions from USG agencies that would facilitate industry growth and stimulate two-way trade including facilitating training programs, providing investment facilitation support to capital seekers and Africa-based capital providers, developing capacity-building programs for intellectual property enforcement, and developing a verifiable system to streamline visa processes.

CrossBoundary and Prosper Africa collaborated to publish the sector study “Investment and Partnership Opportunities in Africa’s Creative Industries” available on the Prosper Africa website.