Creative Industries in ‘Developing’ Countries: Questioning Country Classifications in the UNCTAD Creative Economy Reports

The UNCTAD Creative Economy Reports (CERs) are arguably the most influential policy-oriented texts on the global scope and potential of the creative economy. They contain arguments for greater policy attention to the creative economy worldwide and statistical data to illustrate their claims. These reports argue that the creative economy is an area of growth, not only in “developed”, but also in “developing” economies.

The central argument of this article is that the way the country classification used in the CERs increases the share of “developing countries” in global creative goods exports in contrast to The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) classifications. When singling out China, the share of these countries decreases even further.

According to The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in 2010, 41 “developed” countries account for 51.18 per cent and 158 “developing” countries for 48.03 per cent of the global creative economy with 17 economies in transition accounting for 0.79 per cent. This obfuscates reality and obstructs the creation of evidence-based policies relevant to the creative industries. The classification of developed and developing countries is redrawn in accordance with building on data on the export of creative goods, provided by UNCTADstat.

This article proposes that a more correct, balanced, and disaggregated outlook on the classification of countries is needed because one single “developing country” (China) is the single biggest exporter of creative goods in the world (25.51 per cent in 2010) yet the 49 “least developed countries” account for merely 0.11 per cent of creative goods exports (in 2010) while they comprise 880 million people (or some 12 per cent of the world’s population). In conclusion, it is argued that different kinds of developing countries need different approaches and policies. Reference is made to Burkina Faso to illustrate this point.