In brief
- Creative industries are often described as significant but rarely measured consistently.
- SSI™ offers precision within a boundary: it describes the measured economy, not the whole sector.
- A reliable measure of part of a sector is more useful than an unreliable estimate of all of it.
Creative industries are often described as significant contributors to employment and growth. They are less often measured with the consistency that policy, investment and lending require.
Part of the difficulty is definitional: creative work spans sectors, formats and business models, and much of it happens informally or across borders. Part is evidentiary: without reliable records of what was produced and by whom, figures rely on surveys, estimates and proxies.
That gap has consequences. Lenders struggle to assess creative businesses. Funders struggle to evaluate the effect of their support. Policymakers struggle to design interventions or to know whether they worked.
| Reader | Their difficulty today | What SSI™ offers |
|---|---|---|
| Lenders | Hard to assess creative businesses | Records-based measures that can be compared over time |
| Funders | Hard to evaluate the effect of support | A consistent account of output and participation |
| Policymakers | Hard to design and test interventions | Quarterly measures with a published method |
SSI™ offers a partial answer within its own boundaries. Because the Sanaa Sanifu Economy is built on verified production, its measures — Gross Creative Product, the Participation Index and the Trust & Resilience Index — are derived from records rather than estimates. They describe the measured economy, not the entire creative sector, and should be read that way.
For institutions, that bounded precision is valuable. A reliable measure of part of a sector is more useful than an unreliable estimate of all of it, and it can be compared over time. Institutional partners interested in SSI™ data, methodology or collaboration can begin through the partnership form.