COMMUNITY ARTS DEVELOPMENT IN THE EASTERN CAPE
Departmental Position, Governance, and Strategic Commitments
Listening to the Provinces: Reclaiming Community Arts from Policy Silence
As South Africa prepares for critical conversations on the future of Community Arts, The Creative Passport has deliberately turned its attention away from rhetoric and toward accountability.
We have asked a simple but powerful question to all nine provinces:
How do you understand Community Arts, how are you governing it, and how are communities actually benefiting?
Too often, Community Arts is spoken about for communities rather than with them. It is invoked in policy documents, funding calls, and political speeches, yet remains inconsistently defined, unevenly resourced, and poorly coordinated across provinces.
This series is therefore not about opinion alone. It is about recording official positions, interrogating governance frameworks, and placing provincial commitments on the public record.
In this edition, we turn our focus to the Eastern Cape Province, where Mr Mathemba Ncoyini responds on behalf of the Eastern Cape Government through the Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture (DSRAC).
His submission offers a rare and detailed insight into how the province defines Community Arts, where institutional responsibility sits, how intergovernmental coordination is structured, and what mechanisms exist for accountability, monitoring, and continuity beyond political cycles.
Importantly, this response does not romanticise Community Arts. It confronts real constraints: geography, digital exclusion, skills disparities between rural and urban practitioners, and the systemic challenges of implementation.
At the same time, it outlines forward-looking commitments that seek to expand Community Arts beyond physical centres and into networks, gatherings, and creative ecosystems rooted in community realities.
This is exactly the kind of engagement The Creative Passport is calling for: clear definitions, named responsibilities, measurable commitments, and honest reflection on what works and what does not.
As this provincial voice enters the national conversation, we invite practitioners, policymakers, and communities across South Africa to read carefully, reflect critically, and ask:
How does your province compare? And if it does not, why not?
This is not a talk shop.
This is a record.
Image: DSRAC Logo
Source: DSRAC
Definition of Community Arts
The Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture (DSRAC) defines community arts as an extension of grassroots development driven by active community participation. Community arts focus on identifying, nurturing, and skilling local talent with the explicit objective of enabling meaningful economic participation, social cohesion, and sustainable livelihoods within communities.
Image: ATCA Logo
Source: ATCA
Institutional Responsibility within Government
Responsibility for community arts lies at the core of the DSRAC mandate. The Department is tasked with equipping community arts initiatives through the provision of infrastructure, skills development programmes, and creative platforms, in alignment with the White Paper on Arts, Culture and Heritage. Community arts development is therefore not peripheral, but a direct expression of the Department’s developmental and transformation mandate.
Image: DSAC Logo
Source: DSAC
Intergovernmental Coordination
Coordination across the three spheres of government is achieved through structured planning and cooperative governance mechanisms.
• The National Department allocates grant funding to the province, informed by annual business plans submitted by Community Art Centres.
• The Provincial Department annually sets aside budget allocations to support arts programmes implemented within these centres.
• DSRAC further develops and implements policies guiding programme delivery and formalises partnerships with districts and local municipalities through Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), in line with the Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) Framework.
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Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
Policy Continuity and Sustainability
Policy continuity is safeguarded through:
• Regular consultations with key stakeholders and local municipalities during policy rollout phases; and
• A structured policy review cycle, with all cultural policies reviewed and updated every three years to ensure relevance, responsiveness, and alignment with emerging sector dynamics.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
Monitoring and Support Mechanisms
DSRAC has appointed a dedicated official responsible for Community Art Centres to oversee programme implementation, monitoring, and support across the province.
In addition, a provincial structure has been established with a clear mandate to act as custodian of community arts development. This structure has been formalised through a drafted constitution, ensuring institutional accountability and sector representation.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
Key Implementation Constraints
Effective implementation is constrained by:
• The vast and dispersed geographical nature of the Eastern Cape Province;
• Limited digital infrastructure, which hampers efficient communication and coordination; and
• A skills and knowledge gap between urban and rural community arts practitioners, which slows equitable development and access to opportunities.
Source: ATCA
Practitioner Consultation and Participation
Beyond compliance requirements, practitioners are actively consulted through continuous engagement processes covering planning, implementation, and reporting phases. This approach ensures that artists and cultural practitioners remain central to decision-making and are not marginalised in the development of community arts programmes.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
Accountability and Performance Management
Robust accountability mechanisms are in place to address programme underperformance:
• Community Art Centre managers develop annual business plans, approved by district-level accounting officers.
• Monthly performance reports are submitted and benchmarked against approved business plans.
• In-year monitoring identifies under-expenditure, implementation gaps, and deviations from planned activities.
• The Department’s consequence management policy is applied where officials fail to meet service delivery standards, and remedial action plans are developed for failed or underperforming programmes.
Image: Provincial Engagements
Source: ATCA
Managing Political Transitions
To mitigate the impact of political changes on long-term planning:
• All community arts business plans are aligned with the Department’s five-year strategic planning framework, ensuring continuity across administrations.
• The Community Arts Development Policy (2016) provides for independent management structures and clearly delineated roles, preventing overlaps and insulating programme implementation from sudden political shifts.
Image: DSAC Logo
Source: DSRAC
Current and Forward-Looking Commitments
The Department recognises the need to redefine community arts beyond brick-and-mortar centres. Key commitments include:
• Investing in creative development spaces and initiatives that exist outside formal art centre infrastructure;
• Providing financial support to organised gatherings of creatives whose mandates align with departmental objectives; and
• Strengthening community arts networks through targeted capacitation, funding support, and institutional development.
These commitments form a central pillar of DSRAC’s strategy to advance inclusive, sustainable, and economically viable community arts development across the Eastern Cape.
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