As a consultant specializing in cultural heritage and President of TOWARA-BENIN, the only Béninese NGO accredited with UNESCO, I’ve observed a critical juncture for Bénin. With a Diploma of Advanced Specialized Studies in Finance and Management Control from the University of Abomey-Calavi in 2007, my perspective highlights a significant opportunity. While the global economy increasingly values intangible assets and authenticity, Bénin, the cradle of Vodoun, a land of ancient monarchies, vibrant arts, and a youth bursting with creativity, possesses an invaluable treasure. Yet, this extraordinary heritage remains a slumbering economic giant. For too long, culture has been relegated to merely an aesthetic embellishment or a ceremonial budgetary expense.

Our ambitious vision for 2035 is clear, systematic, and self-reliant: to elevate culture to become the fourth economic pillar of Bénin. This is not about romanticizing the past but about structuring a productive sector that generates wealth, decent employment, and territorial innovation. To achieve this systemic transformation, eight major projects must be implemented.

1. The legal imperative: lifting artists from precarity through law

A robust economy cannot be built on shifting legal sands. While Bénin has recently made some regulatory progress, the urgent need now is to advance to a higher level. The status of artists and cultural workers, along with the establishment of the Artists’ House, should not depend on the fragility of simple decrees, which are inherently reversible and subject to changing political agendas.

The sector’s development demands the promulgation of laws passed by the National Assembly, as these alone can guarantee lasting legal stability and genuine binding force. In the absence of an immediate framework law, the rigorous, accelerated, and mandatory implementation of recent decrees must serve as a temporary bridge.

It is imperative to enshrine social protection for creators, modernize copyright governance, offer substantial tax incentives to private investors, and legally recognize professions related to intangible cultural heritage. Securing the artist means securing investment.

2. Human capital: redesigning human engineering

The lifeblood of this creative economy lies in its human resources. Amateurism must give way to elite professionalization. Bénin must undertake a massive training program encompassing not only artistic disciplines but also cultural management, entrepreneurship, conservation-restoration techniques, and the integration of digital technologies applied to heritage. Every commune should become an incubator for its own talents, aligning training with its specific local characteristics.

3. Sanctuaries of knowledge: specialized schools and centers of excellence

To institutionalize this transmission of knowledge, the nation’s academic structure must establish three critical pillars:

A National Superior School of Arts: Dedicated to nurturing the avant-garde of the contemporary scene (dancers, choreographers, set designers, stage technicians).

A Superior Institute of Cultural Heritage: A cutting-edge scientific laboratory focused on safeguarding tangible and intangible heritage, museography, and archives.

An Academy of Arts and Traditions of Bénin: A sacred space for cultural diplomacy and transmission, where master custodians of traditions document and legitimize ancestral knowledge for future generations.

4. Physical footprint: deploying international-class infrastructure

Creativity requires facilities that match its scope. Bénin’s territorial network must be strengthened with modern, versatile, and decentralized infrastructure. From communal cultural centers to regional theaters, including digital creation complexes and artisan villages, each department needs the physical tools necessary for creation, production, dissemination, and engagement with audiences.

5. The sinews of war: revolutionizing access to funding

Artistic daring without financial means remains an illusion. We advocate a three-dimensional financial architecture to propel the creative economy:

A National Fund for Cultural Development focused on pure creation, research, and international mobility.

A Creative Economy Window within financial institutions, offering preferential interest rates, guarantee mechanisms, and loans tailored to the specific cycles of artistic production.

A public-private Cultural Investment Fund, capable of raising capital from the State, local authorities, employers’ associations, and the diaspora.

6. The sectoral approach: from crafts to visual arts

Bénin’s cultural sector suffers from fragmentation, which dilutes its impact. Whether it’s cinema, fashion, music, dance, or literature, each discipline must be structured as an autonomous industrial sector. This implies that each segment should have a ten-year strategic plan, a training roadmap, dedicated distribution channels, and an aggressive marketing strategy for regional and international markets.

7. Intangible heritage: Bénin’s unique repository

Our masks, ritual rhythms, initiation narratives, and artisanal know-how are not mere folklore objects; they are invaluable intangible assets. By investing in the digitization of collections, the labeling of heritage festivals, and the creation of national cultural itineraries, Bénin can transform its living traditions into powerful levers for local development and tourist appeal.

8. Strategic convergence: culture, tourism, and agro-industry

The influence of Béninese identity ultimately depends on an organic synergy between culture, experiential tourism, and agro-industry. Valuing our local products through the lens of our aesthetics and designing territorial labels of excellence will enable each region to transform its culture into an argument for economic prosperity. By 2035, tourists will not just seek a landscape; they will come to experience a culture, taste a terroir, and inhabit a history.

Towards the grand rendezvous of 2035

Building the Bénin of tomorrow requires breaking away from the rentier paradigms of the past. By 2035, our nation has the historic opportunity to establish itself as the beacon of the creative economy in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This transition is not a matter of poetry but of high state strategy. By providing our artists with a protective and ambitious legislative framework, funding audacity, and safeguarding our memories, we will make culture the engine of sustainable, inclusive growth, proudly rooted in the Béninese genius. The time for mere promises and decrees is over; it is time for legal consecration and decisive action.