Deal sheet
- Status
- FUNDED AND ANNOUNCED; FIRST DISTRIBUTION NOT CONFIRMED. UNESCO's International Fund for Cultural Diversity awarded ESWACOS E1.5 million for 'Reinforcing Copyrights for Eswatini's Cultural and Creative Industries,' running August 2025 to September 2026, announced by Commerce, Industry and Trade Minister Manqoba Khumalo. Weeks earlier, responding to a direct question from Senator Lindiwe Ngwenya on when artists would be paid, the same minister told the Senate: 'At present, no disbursements have been made.' He said distribution could only follow a monitoring period running to 1 April 2026, a date now more than seven months in the past as of this record. The most recent independent reporting this desk could verify, an Eswatini Observer piece of 19 August 2026, puts registered rights holders at roughly 400 and names six businesses now holding ESWACOS music licences, but frames the real test of the law as still being 'whether rights holders receive meaningful royalties,' treating that as unresolved rather than reporting a completed distribution. No source read for this record, as of 5 November 2026, confirms that ESWACOS has paid a single royalty to a single Eswatini creator.
- Type
- Investment
- Parties
- Eswatini Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Society
- Amount
- Emalangeni (SZL); pegged 1:1 to the South African Rand 1,500,000
- Rights covered
- A capacity-building and public-awareness grant, not a rights, licensing or ownership transaction. UNESCO's International Fund for Cultural Diversity funds three things inside ESWACOS's existing statutory mandate under the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act, 2018: training workshops for more than 400 creators and rights holders on copyright law, licensing, compliance and the economic value of creative industries; a five-year national strategy for the collective management and commercialisation of copyright, to be launched at an annual eSwatini Copyright Conference; and public-facing education materials plus a new online copyright resource centre offering registration and licensing services. No composition, master recording, publishing right or neighbouring right changes ownership through this grant. ESWACOS's underlying mandate to negotiate licences, collect royalties and set royalty rates was already established by the 2018 Act before UNESCO's funding arrived; the grant pays for training, strategy and outreach, not for the licensing or collection function itself.
- Territory
- Eswatini
- Announced
- 2025-08-28
- Primary document
- Trade press
- Sources
- Music In Africa, 28 August 2025, read directly 5 November 2026 · Times of Eswatini, 13 August 2025, read directly 5 November 2026: Commerce Minister Manqoba Khumalo tells the Senate, responding to Senator Lindiwe Ngwenya's question on when artists' royalties would be paid, 'At present, no disbursements have been made'; about 100 artists registered during the reporting quarter per the ministry's First Quarter Report; royalty-usage monitoring began 1 April 2025; distribution contingent on cumulative usage data through 1 April 2026. · Times of Eswatini, 2 September 2025, read directly 5 November 2026: confirms the E1.5 million UNESCO IFCD grant for 'Reinforcing Copyrights for Eswatini's Cultural and Creative Industries'; Minister Khumalo calls copyright 'the heartbeat of innovation, culture and economic growth'; UNESCO National Commission Secretary General Lwandle Simelane and Intellectual Property Office Registrar Dr Celucolo Dludlu named only in photo captions, no direct quotes attributed to either. · Eswatini Observer, 19 August 2026, read directly 5 November 2026: independent year-later check places registered rights holders at roughly 400 and names six businesses holding ESWACOS music licences (Sibane Sami Hotel, George Hotel, MTN Bushfire, Standard Bank Luju, Eswatini Biggest Braai, EswatiniBank); argues the real test of the 2018 Act is 'whether rights holders receive meaningful royalties,' treating that as still open; also questions a reported E2 million 2024/25 budget line for music-rights licensing to the state broadcaster EBIS, noting EBIS does not appear among ESWACOS's own registered rights holders. · Music In Africa, 19 March 2025, read directly 5 November 2026: ESWACOS's own account of its plan ahead of launch, including executive director Mmeli Hlanze's statement that annual general meetings 'will provide a platform for accountability,' and that royalty collection was due to start 1 April 2025.
Read this before citing: This desk could not independently verify a specific completed first-distribution date, a distribution amount, or a current count of licensed businesses and registered works beyond what Eswatini Observer's own reporting states (roughly 400 rights holders, six named licensees, as of 19 August 2026). Secondary reports describing a later ESWACOS media workshop, citing figures of approximately E500,000 in licence fees, more than 100 businesses engaged, 400-plus rights holders, 500-plus registered works, a target of the 2026/27 financial year for first distribution, and a quoted line about no emaSwati creator having been paid, were found only as a PressReader mirror of a Times of Eswatini article that returned HTTP 200 but served no readable article text to this desk's automated or manual fetch; those figures and that quote are not relied on in this record because they could not be read and checked directly against the original reporting. If ESWACOS has since made a first distribution, that has not been reported by any source this desk could read in full as of 5 November 2026.
