Kraków in the UNESCO network | Kraków UNESCO City of Literature

In 2004, UNESCO founded the Creative Cities Network. It promotes cooperation among cities which have recognised culture and creativity as strategic drivers of sustainable urban development, meeting the goals defined by the UN’s Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 (2015) and the New Urban Agenda (2016).

When joining the network, each member city selects one of seven fields it wishes to focus on: crafts and folk arts, design, film, gastronomy, literature, music or new media. The Creative Cities Network includes almost 300 cities from around 90 countries, and it continues to expand every other year by selecting new members through an open application process.

Kraków joined the network in 2013, and it has been implementing the Kraków UNESCO City of Literature programme ever since. The Cities of Literature group currently has 42 members representing 28 countries from six continents. The cities are obliged to support readership and the book industry through the following:

Building a friendly network rooted in cooperation and reflecting the diversity of world languages and literatures,
Promoting values of dialogue and freedom of speech and expression,
International collaboration bringing benefits to literary sectors on the local and national scale,
Supporting relationships between creative cities all over the globe,
Maintaining good communication between cities and local partners.

Kraków is an active participant in the network, and the decade so far has resulted in numerous international projects, in particular residential programmes. Kraków presided over the activities of the UNESCO City of Literature programme between 2014 and 2018.