Heritage Funding on the Line: South Africa's NHC Says Sector Must Prove Its Economic Worth

Heritage conservation in South Africa competes each budget cycle with health, social welfare and education for a slice of scarce public funding. The National Heritage Council’s answer to that competition is blunt: prove the sector’s economic value, or keep losing ground.

That is the core message from Dr Thabo Manetsi, chief executive officer of the NHC, the statutory body responsible for the preservation, protection and promotion of the country’s heritage. In an interview with SAnews, he framed heritage not as a cost centre to be defended each September, but as an asset class with measurable returns in job creation, enterprise development and economic stimulus.

“Heritage conservation often tends to compete with other pressing priorities like health, social welfare and education,” Manetsi said. “This automatically translates to less prioritisation of resource allocation to heritage conservation management.”

The economics, though, have been shifting. Manetsi pointed to trends that emerged since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which heritage has been deployed as a social currency to respond to socio-economic conditions. The channels he listed: tourism, infrastructure development, the creative industry and digital technology. Each, in his telling, shows that heritage management serves a purpose well beyond conservation for its own sake.

For investors and operators watching the cultural economy, the argument amounts to market positioning. Heritage assets, whether sites, languages or indigenous knowledge, generate returns when actively developed rather than simply preserved. Manetsi said heritage conservation and its uses should respond to and contribute to efforts addressing the socio-economic needs of the nation, especially youth development and empowerment in a developing country like South Africa.

“This is one among several approaches that seem to attract more public interest and youth participation in conservation management,” he explained, “which appeals to a deep understanding and appreciation of heritage and its conservation needs, while simultaneously presenting prospects of socio-economic opportunities.”

The NHC’s most visible instrument for rewarding those who build value in the sector is the Golden Shield Heritage Awards, known as GOSHA. The awards recognise excellence in heritage conservation management through public nominations of individuals and projects that have made a significant contribution to promoting and preserving the nation’s heritage.

“Since its inception 13 years ago, the GOSHA has grown in leaps and bounds, especially through the recognition of previously suppressed aspects of heritage resources such as Living Heritage, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Liberation Heritage, Ubuntu, amongst other relevant categories,” Manetsi said. Those categories, he noted, promote broad participation and diverse representation, including cultural diversity.

The underlying asset, in the council’s framing, is language. “Language serves as a medium through which our diverse cultural heritage is transferred and transmitted across generations, from one generation to the next,” Manetsi said. Heritage, in this view, extends well beyond the attire, food and dance moves that dominate September. It includes the languages spoken at home, knowledge passed between generations, and the places and stories that shape communities.

Manetsi also acknowledged a demand-side problem. Asked whether South Africans tend to take heritage for granted, his answer was yes. The remedy, he argued, is sustained public education and awareness that engenders patriotism grounded in African heritage, in line with the Constitution and heritage laws. The legal architecture is already in place: the National Heritage Resources Act provides an integrated system for managing and conserving the country’s heritage resources so they can pass to future generations. Section 30 of the Constitution, meanwhile, guarantees everyone the right to use the language and participate in the cultural life of their choice, provided that exercise remains consistent with the Bill of Rights.

Heritage Day, Manetsi stressed, is not simply a date on the calendar. It is a dedicated occasion to raise awareness of the cultural diversity and past that have shaped the country’s present and future.

His closing pitch amounts to a call for year-round utilisation of the sector’s assets. “Let’s continue to use our heritage resources throughout the year and not showcase our cultural heritage only during heritage month,” he said, urging that heritage be developed and sustained through intergenerational transfer for the benefit of present and future generations.

For a sector whose budget line has historically trailed health, welfare and education, the council’s case is that heritage is not a September exhibition but a working portfolio. Its returns, in tourism, creative enterprise and youth opportunity, are the basis for a stronger claim on national resources. Whether treasury planners agree remains the open question behind next year’s allocations.