Heritage Economy: How Culture, History and Identity Can Become Productive Economic Assets Without Losing Their Meaning

For generations, culture has been treated as something to preserve. Something to remember. Something to teach children. Something belonging to the past. But culture can also be an economic asset.

The craftsmanship passed from one generation to another, textile techniques that carry the identity of a people. Food, music, festivals and stories that cannot be found anywhere else. These are not simply remnants of history. They can create businesses, jobs, tourism, education and new creative industries.

This is the idea behind a heritage economy. Turning what a people already have into something productive without stripping it of what makes it meaningful.

The opportunity is particularly significant across Africa, where countless histories, crafts and cultural practices remain poorly documented, underfunded or largely unknown outside their communities. Consider the difference between having a history and building an economy around that history.

Benin Republic has increasingly made the story of the Dahomey Amazons visible through monuments, tourism and cultural programming. The 30-metre Amazon Monument in Cotonou presents the history of the Agodjié warriors as a part of the country’s cultural identity that people can encounter. Across Africa, there are countless stories waiting for similar treatment. The problem is not always a lack of heritage. Sometimes it is a lack of imagination around what can be built from it.

For example, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, a historical figure, can become the centre of a museum in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, a regular educational workshop, or a digital archive. Tie and dye can become a fashion label. Local weaving techniques can enter modern design. A traditional garment can find its way into streetwear. A story can become a film, exhibition, book or digital experience.

Heritage does not have to be fossilized for it to remain authentic. Cultures evolve. Young people will always reinterpret what previous generations handed to them. And that is kind of how culture survives.

What must remain is the essence—the why behind the practice, the story that gave it meaning in the first place. 

But this is where commercialisation becomes complicated. Profit itself is not the problem. Profit without responsibility is.

Somebody building a successful fashion business from a traditional weaving technique can create income for themselves while also creating work for artisans, teaching the art, and keeping the technique alive. A filmmaker can make money telling an old story while introducing that history to an audience that may never have encountered it otherwise.

The question is, “what happens to the culture after the transaction?”

If money helps to preserve the practice, compensate the people who carry it, educate the next generation and expand its reach, then commerce becomes part of preservation. But if the story is stripped of its original context simply because the simplified version sells better, something else is happening. This is why heritage economies require more than creativity. They require integrity.

Young Africans are actually already finding themselves inside what their grandparents passed down. Traditional attires are already becoming everyday fashion. Ancient stories, films and digital content. Music and sounds. Creators researching the lives of people history has forgotten and making those stories accessible to new audiences.

Awka offers a useful example of what this could look like. Blacksmithing is part of the city’s historical identity, teaching the craft more widely, documenting its history and creating spaces where people can encounter it could turn preservation into education, tourism and economic activity. And the same thinking applies to historical figures.

An economy built around heritage should begin with the question, “What do we have, why does it matter, and how can we build something sustainable around it?”

The money comes after the meaning.

Because when a people lose what they have, it eventually becomes harder to remember their story. What they know. Heritage should not only be something we preserve because it can make money.

It can also be something we live, build from and tell.