Policies for the design and applied arts sector

The Ministry of Culture and Heritage has developed actions for the effective development, promotion and dissemination of this sector, through inter-institutional and sectorial articulation of its main lines of work. A clear example is the "Design Festival CROMIA", carried out by the Directorate of Design and Applied Arts.

CROMIA is a convention created in 2013 as a design festival, with the aim of strengthening capacities and making visible the actors participating in the production chain of the sector, considering its four specialties: 1) graphic design, 2) industrial or product design, 3) textile and clothing design and 4) interior design.

Its main purpose is to situate design as a discipline that contributes to socio-economic development of the region, through cultural goods production and job creation. This objective is developed continuously following three lines of action: (i) strengthening capacities through specialized conferences and workshops which promotes the exchange of knowledge and experiences with national and international experts;(ii) making the design sector visible in order to promote its acknowledgment through a space of exhibition and staging of talent, which encourages the creation, production, diffusion and exhibition as a whole productive and creative process; and, (iii) creating a commercial space which allows the promotion and strengthening of the industry stimulating the creation, production, diffusion and commercialization.

The average investment cost, per year, from 2013 to 2016 for the implementation of CROMIA has been $ 195,000.00.One of the project’s most remarkable achievements was its joint launch with members of civil society from the Ecuadorian Chamber of Design, as a space for public policy articulation among professionals from the sector and the State.

The Ministry of Culture and Heritage has also succeeded in having an active participation in the International Meeting on Public Policy and Design, which is a space that in its fifth edition of 2014 had Guayaquil, Ecuador as its headquarters. The previous editions were: Buenos Aires (2010), Bogotá (2011), Guadalajara (2012), Uruguay (2013), Chile (2015) and Cuba (2016).

For the 2014 edition in Ecuador, it was proposed among many other objectives, the generation of "insertion routes for design, in order to advance on its inclusion in public policies, specifically in those which purpose is the transformation of the productive matrix". In addition, some work was done on the formulation of business, cultural, educational and environmental policies, with the design as a crosscutting sector.

The main objectives of this space have been:

• To establish design as across cutting axis for social and economic development of the region.
• To make recommendations as input and support for the construction of public policies regarding to design.
• To develop and strengthen the presence of the design sector in the political decision- making scenarios throughout the Latin American region, generating a space for analysis and discussion around this purpose with the participation of managers and experts from different countries of the region.