Connect for Culture Africa (CfCA), a collaboration between Selam and the African Union (AU), has carried out a roundtable discussion  under the theme “Exploring opportunities and challenges in securing public funding for the culture sector in Ethiopia”. Participants mentioned challenges ranging from lack of awareness in the community, government bodies and higher officials to the lack of clear categorization of different cultural elements, to what and how public funding is going to be spent on, to lack of clear presentation of the potential of the culture sector during budget request, to lack of presenting culture in its authentic form because of limited budget. To alleviate the challenges it was mentioned that clear categorization of culture is needed, that the impact culture sector has on the economy needs to be clearly indicated, everybody should take ownership and contribute their part. 

The event was attended by notable and distinguished guests including her Excellency state minister of Ministry of Culture and Sport Nafisa Almahdi, her Excellency head of Culture, Art and Tourism Bureau of Addis Ababa Administration Dr. Hirut Kassaw, representatives of regional culture and tourism bureaus from Afar, Somali, Amhara, Tigray, and Harari regions and also Dire Dawa City Administration, heads and member of professional associations, the founder of Selam,Teshome Wondimu, Selam’s staff from Sweden, Kenya and Ethiopia.