African and Caribbean ministers responsible for cultural and creative industries have called for regulatory frameworks to protect creators, cultural assets and intellectual property as artificial intelligence reshapes the creative economy, urging governments and stakeholders to develop policies and infrastructure that would enable African creators to participate fully in the digital economy.
The call came in a communiqué issued at the end of a ministerial roundtable held during CANEX Weekend 2026 in Lagos on November 5th, themed ‘From Commitments to Implementation: Accelerating Global Africa’s Culture and Creative Industries in the Age of AI and Innovation’. The ministers acknowledged that AI could create new opportunities for creators and entrepreneurs across Africa’s cultural and creative industries but warned that questions around ownership, cultural representation and economic equity needed to be addressed.
The ministers called for measures that would ensure African creators are adequately represented and protected in the development and application of AI systems, while enabling the continent’s creative businesses to benefit from emerging digital technologies, alongside tailored funding and investment mechanisms suited to the needs of cultural and creative businesses. The communiqué further urged member states to sign, ratify and domesticate the statute of the African Audiovisual and Cinema Commission and the Charter for African Cultural Renaissance, describing the instruments as important for creating an enabling environment, protecting intellectual property and accelerating cross-border trade and job creation.
Nigeria’s Minister of Art, Culture and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa, called for accelerated implementation of the African Union’s revised plan of action on cultural and creative industries, noting that digital transformation, artificial intelligence and emerging business models were reshaping the creative economy and making intellectual property protection and commercialisation increasingly important. She said African countries must develop shared principles on artificial intelligence, intellectual property and the rights of creators, particularly as digital technologies create new questions around ownership and compensation for creative works.
Experts at a panel session titled ‘Artificial Intelligence and Animation: IP, Authorship, and Ethics’ at CANEX 2026 warned that African creators risk losing control of their intellectual property, cultural data and potential earnings as global AI platforms increasingly use African creative works without adequate consent, recognition or compensation. Filmmaker and creative technology entrepreneur Malik Afegbua said African cultural content was being harvested to train AI systems, with products subsequently sold back to African users, leaving the continent with little economic value from its own cultural resources.
Afegbua called for African-owned AI platforms, stronger data protection, and systems that ensure creators and communities are properly credited and compensated, while warning that the growing use of AI could weaken traditional creative skills, undermine apprenticeship opportunities and deepen the underrepresentation of African languages and cultures in global technology systems. He urged African governments, cultural institutions and creators to work together to build language models using African voices, digitise cultural archives and establish clear rules around consent, licensing and compensation.
The ministers committed to working with the African Union Commission and Afreximbank to implement the recommendations, establish mechanisms for monitoring progress and convene regular platforms to share experiences and strengthen cooperation, with improved data collection and research also called for to support evidence-based policymaking in the creative economy. Nigeria’s Minister disclosed that the government was working towards a two-million-job target from the creative economy by 2030 through policy reforms, improved access to finance, investment in infrastructure and stronger protection of intellectual property.
The challenge now is to convert the commitments and partnerships announced at the CANEX roundtable into concrete regulatory frameworks and funding mechanisms, with the ministers’ call for shared principles on AI, intellectual property and creator rights providing a starting point for coordinated action across the continent.
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