As the world marked the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage on October 27, industry professionals, academics, and policy advocates gathered at the University of Media, Arts and Communication – Institute of Film and Television (UniMAC-IFT) to discuss not only the cultural but also the economic implications of preserving Ghana’s audiovisual legacy.
Under the theme “Preserving Our Stories: Ghanaian Audiovisual Heritage in the Digital Age,” the event, organized in collaboration with UNESCO, shed light on a largely ignored reality: Ghana’s archives are not just cultural treasures but potential economic assets waiting to be unlocked.
The global creative economy is now one of the fastest-growing sectors, generating billions annually through film, music, photography, and digital content. Yet in Ghana, the physical decay of reels, videotapes, and early television recordings represents a silent economic loss. Each damaged tape or unpreserved film is not only a lost memory but a lost opportunity for monetization, education, and tourism.
Dr. Rebecca Ohene-Asah, Dean of the Faculty of Digital Media and Design, emphasized in her address that the preservation of audiovisual materials must go hand in hand with innovation and enterprise.
“Our archives have proven to be a living reflection of where we are today, where we were yesterday, and where we want to get to,” she said.
She announced that UniMAC-IFT is designing a new master’s programme in digital archiving and preservation, an initiative that could create a new pool of experts skilled in digital asset management and heritage economy development.
Such efforts, when properly funded and integrated with national policy, can drive job creation, entrepreneurship, and foreign investment. Across Africa, digitised archives are increasingly being leveraged for documentaries, heritage tourism, streaming platforms, and educational licensing.
Ghana’s own archives, spanning post-independence newsreels, traditional performances, and early video films, could power a new creative sub-sector if restored and made commercially viable.
In her remarks, Dr. Naazia Ibrahim, Deputy Secretary-General for Operations at the Ghana Commission for UNESCO, cautioned that the problem is not the absence of ideas or research but the lack of investment.
“We may not lack research and data on our audiovisual legacy, but what we lack is investment and political will,” she said. Her comments touched a nerve that resonates deeply with the local creative economy, where insufficient funding has left much of Ghana’s historical footage languishing in storage. She urged that preservation should be seen not as a cost but as a capital investment in the country’s identity economy.
The keynote speaker, Professor Kodzo Gavua, Chair of the Ghana Heritage Committee and Council Chair at the University of Health and Allied Sciences, also drew attention to the financial implications of neglect. He warned that every lost reel is equivalent to losing an intellectual property right, with potential long-term losses for the nation.
“If we fail to preserve our stories, we lose the language of our identity,” he stated, urging policymakers to approach heritage as a sustainable development resource. He likened the archiving sector to mining, except that what is being extracted is the wealth of collective memory.
The event’s film screening, featuring restored Ghanaian works from the “Ghana Analogue Video Film Digitisation, Archiving and Repository Project,” offered a glimpse of what revitalized audiovisual assets could mean for the creative market. Restored films can be distributed to local and international platforms, screened at cultural festivals, or licensed for academic use. Each of these avenues translates into revenue generation, employment, and cultural diplomacy.
Participants in the open discussion, titled “Digitising Memory: Challenges and Opportunities in Ghanaian Film Archiving,” raised key concerns about funding models, access, and sustainability. Several proposed public-private partnerships to support digitisation and preservation. Others called for the establishment of a national audiovisual fund, similar to those supporting film production, to provide grants or soft loans for archiving projects.
For Ghana, where the creative arts already contribute to GDP through film, music, and advertising, investing in audiovisual heritage could open an untapped segment of the knowledge economy. Properly managed archives could serve broadcasters, digital platforms, and research institutions while generating employment for archivists, data engineers, film restorers, and storytellers.
As the celebrations closed, one message stood out clearly: preserving Ghana’s audiovisual memory is not just a cultural duty but a business opportunity. In a digital age where data is capital, heritage has become a new currency. With the right investment and vision, Ghana’s film and audio archives can move from dusty shelves to global screens, telling the nation’s story while creating sustainable economic value.
