UNESCO Creative Cities Network:
Kozhikode, a city in north Kerala celebrated for its rich cultural heritage, has been officially declared as India’s first UNESCO City of Literature under the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.
- UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) was created in 2004 to promote cooperation with and among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development.
- Almost 300 cities around the world currently make up this network.
- Objective is placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level and cooperating actively at the international level.
- UNESCO designates the creative cities in seven fields:craft, folk art, media arts, film design, gastronomy, literature, and music.
- Every year, UNESCO seeks applications from various cities across the globe to put them under its UCCN project.
- The applications in India are routed through the Ministry of Culture.