MEDI (Music Economy Development Initiative)
The Music Economy Development Initiative (MEDI) is a global partnership driven by the Center for Music Ecosystems, Global Citizen, and international and local partners. Its mission is to expand music's potential to eradicate poverty and create a better future.
What MEDI does!
Research
The MEDI portal is a definitive source of country‑specific data and case studies demonstrating music's economic and social potential. It is free to access and aimed at accelerating understanding of how music can be a tool to address global poverty and foster economic development.
Partnerships
MEDI will facilitate programs, policies, and investments to support the development of music ecosystems in Africa and worldwide. These include Move Afrika, investments by governments, multilaterals, and the private sector in music infrastructure, and support for national copyright and infrastructure reform.
How do they do this?
The MEDI research portal will provide policymakers, governments, and private sector partners with research, economic data, case studies, and frameworks to map music's potential to fight extreme poverty. The data will provide the foundation to support local ecosystem development, including policy and copyright reform, infrastructure investment, skills training, education, and capacity development.
Why does this matter?
Music moves us, unites communities, and inspires hope.
Yet, while music’s value is shared worldwide, access to its economic benefits is not. Many countries lack the essential foundations for treating music as an economic good, including robust copyright regulation, access to education, skills development, and live and recorded music infrastructure. This reduces the potential value of music to accelerate global economic development and advocacy efforts to create and enforce copyright, infrastructure, and education policies needed to accelerate its value and realize its potential.
The World Bank has stated that we need 1.2 billion jobs to meet demographic demand, but only 420 million are set to be created. Our vision is simple: in villages, cities and countries, music fuels incomes, concerts create jobs, and studios support neighborhoods. A young person with a guitar, a voice, or a song idea can succeed as an entrepreneur. And all this activity is helping to address extreme poverty.
Everyone, everywhere, should have access to music's economic potential. MEDI’s mission—in partnership and collaboration with a broad coalition—is to ensure this happens.
Looking to the future!
With this research, they aim to centralize music as a powerful, accessible tool everywhere to fight extreme poverty. The goal is to support, with local experts who understand what’s best for their localities, stronger foundations for intellectual property regulation, music education, and investments in music infrastructure. The more we demonstrate that music is an economy, the more it will be treated as an economic good.
