Creativity for Sustainable Cities: leveraging culture for social inclusion, economic development, and enhanced resilience

The training event will focus on some approaches and strategies to leverage the power of culture and creativity to promote sustainable and inclusive urban development. Key concepts, challenges, and potentials will be identified, and innovative solutions shaped by local governments and stakeholders to nurture inclusive urban prosperity and reduce inequalities will be shared. The training will address more specifically ways in which local authorities can design, implement and assess culture-engaged urban development strategies, action plans and initiatives. Presentations and group working sessions will showcase practical examples where culture and creativity help address critical urban development challenges, including reducing social and economic inequalities or enhancing environmental sustainability. Rapid urbanization present risks as well as opportunities for culture and creativity as major transformative drivers towards more people-centered, environmentally sustainable and economically inclusive cities. The focus will be more particularly on strategies that (i) promote livelihoods and economic growth in culture and creativity, (ii)promote participatory decision-making mechanisms, (iii) promote social inclusion and social cohesion, (iv) foster sustainable consumption and production patterns to tackle environmental challenges, (v) innovate with urban design and territorial planning strategies

and (vi) Measure culture's impact on sustainable urban development.

The training event will build on conceptual and operational knowledge and know-how developed by UNESCO in the area of culture and sustainable cities through its normative instruments and programmes. Promoting culture-engaged, people-centered urban paradigms has been an important area of UNESCO's advocacy efforts over the last years towards the preparation and implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the New Urban Agenda. The Organization's commitment resulted in the role of culture being reflected in SDG 11, particularly target 11.4, but also across a number of other SDGs and targets related notably to social cohesion, inclusive economic growth, sustainable environment, integrated territorial planning or urban resilience. UNESCO's commitment towards sustainable urban development was also reflected in the organization's strategic participation in the Habitat III process (Issue Paper, Policy Paper, special and thematic sessions) and publication of the UNESCO Global Report Culture: Urban Future in 2016 (at Habitat III). Through 12 thematic policy papers and 120 case studies, this milestone publication explores ways in which culture can stimulate urban sustainability across the world. As a result, the role of culture as a transformative driving force nurtures the vision and action plan set forth in the New Urban Agenda.