Cultural Policy in Action: An Examination of the Centres for National Culture in Ghana

Abstract

The cultural sector provides hundreds of thousands of employment opportunities in Ghana and serves as a driver of the tourism industry in Ghana. Globally, the cultural sector is estimated to be in excess of a trillion dollars; therefore, it is a significant sector for socioeconomic development. Culture is a multidimensional concept; thence, cultural policy plays a significant role in operationalising and actualising the culture of Ghanaian society. The cultural sector employs tens of thousands and contributes about 1.53% to the Ghanaian Gross Domestic Product. Extant literature exists on cultural policies in developed economies, with few scholars having examined the cultural policies of Ghana with a focus on performing arts. However, a lacuna exists in the literature on the operationalisation and impact assessment of the cultural policies in sub-Saharan Africa. The research article evaluates the role and challenges of the actions of the Centre for National Culture, the implementing agency of the Ghanaian Cultural Policy, using a qualitative approach by deploying historical, textual analysis and ethnomethodology approaches. The study focused on textual analysis of documents of the National Commission on Culture and sampled seven management members to understand the working experiences, factors and challenges that they face in operationalising the Cultural Policy as an agency. The study sampled respondents from the Central Regional Directorate of the Centre for National Culture (CNC).