Under the theme ‘UNESCO Creative Cities: Build back better from COVID-19’, UNESCO in collaboration with the Creative City of Santos (Brazil), organized an online meeting on 6 and 7 July 2021.
Throughout the two days, the event brought together more than 175 Creative Cities from 62 countries, and gave voice to mayors, representatives and other stakeholders such as project managers from the Creative Cities to share their valuable experiences, exchange their good practices, and foster our collective efforts to highlight the decisive role of culture and creativity empowered responses and recovery measures to the pandemic, notably at the city level.
Building on the 2020 ‘UNESCO Creative Cities’ Response to COVID-19’ publication, the first day of the meeting allowed cities to share the cultural and creative initiatives undertaken to respond directly to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the second day, the emphasis was laid upon the urban recovery process, and more precisely on how to build cities back better through culture and creativity. Throughout these session, Creative Cities exchanged their experiences and knowledge with others while underlining the importance of collaboration to build sustainable and resilient cities.
During the two-day meeting, a dedicated session on the challenges and opportunities linked to the recovery of urban tourism was also organized. Being one of the most severely hit sectors by the pandemic, recognizing urban tourism’s potential as an enabler of sustainable and inclusive recovery and growth was the key message of the session.
Having created a timely source of inspiration amongst member cities, the meeting has fostered exchanges of good practices and experiences, as well as created new opportunities of learning and collaboration amongst Creative Cities worldwide.
The recordings of the meeting and the different interventions are available at the following links: