M&E KDI Summary - Report

Overview

This summative report provides an overview of the monitoring and evalution of six festivals and events funded under the Mzansi’s Golden Economy (MGE) initiative in 2016. It also provides a critical discussion of the Framework for the Monitoring and Evalution of Publically Funded Arts, Culture and Heritage (SACO, 2016) produced by the South African Cultural Observatory for the Department of Arts and Culture.

The Framework demonstrates how the value of cultural festivals and events can be measured under five different themes: Audience development and education, Human capital and professional capacity building, Inclusive economic growth, Social cohesion and community development, and Reflective and engaged citizens. The six live events on which the Framework was tested were: the SA Music Awards, the National Arts Festival, the Indoni Youth Empowerment Festival, MACUFE, the Royal Heritage Festival, and Mahika Mahikeng. 

Results demonstrate a wide variety of ways in which data can be used to express and measure the cultural values associated with festivals and events. In most of the value themes, the Framework was successful in capturing important aspects of cultural value. Some longer-term values (such as building the human capital and careers of performers) may need to be evaluated over time as well.

Although DAC funding under the MGE initiative made up only a proportion of total organiser spending for each event, it can act as important leverage of securing other funding. Along with spending by attendees, the combined economic impact of the six events on their host economies was R364,63m. Cultural festivals and events can also play longer-term roles in developing the place-identity of the cities or towns in which they occur, which can encourage the growth of tourism industries in general, and cultural tourism in particular.

Overall, the M&E Framework developed by SACO appears to have been effective in capturing a wide variety of values associated with cultural events.