Insights from Sound Connects Fund published in new report

The report, which is available for free HERE, is intended for CCI players, including individuals and organisations, to learn from the actions undertaken by the Sound Connects Fund and its beneficiaries. The report has been published together with another Sound Connects Fund report based on detailed surveys into the wider CCIs in the Southern African Development Community region, also available HERE.

The Sound Connects Fund was implemented over 40 months by the Music In Africa Foundation and Goethe-Institut in nine Southern African countries, namely Angola, Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The multifaceted initiative – funded by the ACP-EU Culture programme, a project implemented by the Organisation of the African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) and the European Union (EU) – supported 36 organisations in the nine target countries to develop projects in different CCI fields such as music, film, dance, animation, gaming, broadcasting, events, education and cultural management, among others.

What’s in the report

The report is divided into two sections: Projects and Learnings, with the former grouping the 36 projects into three sub-categories that speak to:

• Improving the capacity of creative professionals, leaders and organisations.
• Improving access to financing to support the creation and sustainability of business and organisations.
• Increasing visibility and market access for cultural and creative practitioners and artists.

This far-reaching section of the report allows readers to get a sense of the scope of the funded projects, what ideas went into designing them and the change they brought about after they were implemented.

The Learnings section, on the other hand, lays out a selection of Sound Connects Fund projects as case studies to illustrate important lessons and operational approaches that can be beneficial to other practitioners in the future, including sustainability, collaboration, digitisation, advocacy and infrastructure development, among others.

Access and download the Sound Connects Fund Projects & Learnings report HERE.

More about the Sound Connects Fund

The Sound Connects Fund was implemented to professionalise, capacitate and provide funding opportunities to CCI organisations in Southern Africa. Apart from funding, the initiative upskilled the grantees through annual networking events and the Sound Connects Academy – a learning platform that was developed to facilitate sessions on a series of industry-related subjects. The Sound Connects Fund also hosted the 2024 Sound Connects Conference in Maputo, Mozambique, where cultural professionals gathered to network, take part in engaging panel discussions and learn about the funded projects.