Impact Study: UNESCO-Aschberg Programme for Artists and Cultural Professionals

There have also been a number of events sponsored by the EU and EU Member States that have attempted to promote the objectives of the PCC and the 2005 Convention in European film festivals 34 , joint business forums 35 and events organized by

National Commissions for UNESCO 36 . Trends in cultural trade flows

It can be argued that the creative sector makes an important contribution to the Caribbean economy and has the potential to be a top export-earning sector. The EPA’s trade performance can clearly be an indicator of implementation success. However, as this study confirmed, there are intrinsic difficulties in capturing data across areas of trade, in particular for services. This includes challenges to gathering data on earnings and cross-border flows in intellectual property, which have become increasingly important, given the rapid shift towards digitization in the creative sector 37 . One of the key issues to be mentioned in terms of assessing the impact of the EPAon cultural trade flows is that the EUmarket is not among the top ranked markets for creative workers in the Caribbean. In a regional survey of creative entrepreneurs, artists, managers and administrators 38 , it was found that the top three export markets for the creative industries were the United States, the Caribbean diaspora abroad (again mostly in North America) and other CARIFORUMStates (see Figure 1). The United Kingdom market was fourth ahead of Canada and the EU (excluding the United Kingdom). LatinAmerica andAsiawere the lowest ranked markets. From the standpoint of the EPA this means that the United Kingdom is considered as the primary EU market particularly for CARICOM countries; the exception from a CARIFORUMperspective is for firms fromtheDominicanRepublic, where Spain is the major target market. 34. Based on interviews with DG Connect. 35. See The Music Sector and CARIFORUM-EU Trade Relations , Background Brief for the 3 rd CARIFORUM-European Union Business Forum, April 15-16, 2015. 36. See“Fair Trade for Culture“, an Initiative of the German Commission for UNESCO, Conference Report by Jordi Baltà Portoles, January 2019. 37. Keith Nurse, ‘The Creative Economy and Creative Entrepreneurship in the Caribbean’ in Caribbean Popular Culture: Power, Politics and Performance , Yanique Hume and Aaron Kamugisha (eds.), Ian Randle Publishers, 2016, pp. 693-706. 38. The regional online survey targeted a range of key stakeholders. Response data was collected from 151 respondents. A large share of the participatory respondents came from Trinidad and Tobago (26%), Belize (14%) and Barbados (11%). Across all CARIFORUM States, the largest share of respondents were sole entrepreneurs and private firms, accounting for 36% of all respondents to the survey.

52 Culture in the CARIFORUM-EU EPA