Creative Central Asia

Prof Andy Pratt has been helping Central Asian countries understand the creative industries, and to develop the first economic analysis of the sector. The British Council organised a first Central Asia forum in Astana, Kazakhstan last year that launched the initiative. At that event Andy was asked to lead on the ‘mapping’ document. Andy has been helping the local team prepare the document, he also visited Almaty last year to speak to policy makers. Andy is also on the British Council strategy group for this initiative.

The meeting this week (Nov 16/17) attracted 100 cultural and creative sector leaders and continued the British Council’s work of building long-term relationships between the UK and the countries of Central Asia. Audiences were again able to engage with conference content online and in addition to dialogue and debate. Last year’s event was mainly focused on Kazakhstan; but this year extended to groups from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It is hoped that in the future the economic mapping can be extended to the whole Central Asian region. The event also saw the launch of the mapping document.

Andy is also working with universities to help develop skills in cultural planning and management, Andy is part of a team who were aware money from the British Council ‘Creative Spark’ programme to do this.