World Craft City

Syllabus - History & Culture [GS Paper-1]

26/06/2024

337 3 minutes read

Context

Recently Srinagar has become the fourth Indian city to be recognized as a ‘World Craft City’ by the World Craft Council (WCC), following its designation as part of the UNESCO Creative City Network (UCCN) for crafts and folk arts three years ago.

World Craft Council (WCC)

About

- - WCC is a non-profit, non-governmental organization affiliated with UNESCO.
  - Established in 1964, it aims to promote the renovation, safety, and development of conventional crafts and foster economic development by crafts.

World Craft City Recognition by WCC

- World Craft City popularity by the WCC is an esteemed designation given to towns that excel within the promoting and development of conventional crafts and artisanship.
- This popularity recognizes the town’s dedication to preserving and promoting its particular craft heritage and helping regional artisans.

Significance of World Craft City Recognition

International Prestige: The reputation elevates the town’s status on an international platform, enhancing its popularity as a middle of excellence for crafts.
Economic Benefits: This designation can boost the local economic system by attracting tourists, investors, and buyers interested in authentic crafts, thereby increasing market opportunities for artisans.
Cultural Preservation: It highlights the metropolis’s willpower to keep conventional crafts, ensuring that those cultural practices are exceeded right down to future generations.
Support for Artisans: The popularity often ends in accelerated help for regional artisans, inclusive of funding, education, and opportunities for global collaboration and change.
Promotion of Innovation: It encourages innovation within the craft region by mixing conventional techniques with current designs, fostering creativity and sustainability.
Enhanced Visibility: The city and its crafts acquire more visibility by global media insurance, exhibitions, and occasions related to the WCC.
Criteria for Recognition as a World Craft City, a city commonly wishes to demonstrate:
- A rich lifestyle of crafts and a considerable populace of professional artisans.
- Active promotion and development of craft traditions.
- Commitment to preserving cultural background & helping sustainable practices.
- Evidence of innovation and creativity in craft practices.
- Strong network involvement and help for the craft sector.

UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network (UCCN)

About

- - The UCCN was created in 2004 to promote cooperation among cities which have diagnosed creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable city development.
  - It includes 350 towns in over 100 countries.
  - It was launched to promote UNESCO’s desires of cultural range and support resilience to threats along with climate change, rising inequality, and rapid urbanisation.

Aim

- - The network is aimed at leveraging the innovative, social, and economic potential of cultural industries.
  - It encourages a subculture of creativity in urban making plans and solutions to urban issues.

Objective

- - It permits member cities to recognise creativity as an essential aspect of city development, drastically by partnerships concerning the private and public sectors and civil society.
  - It envisages to broaden hubs of creativity and innovation and increase opportunities for creators and specialists in the cultural sector.
  - These towns need to acquire the UN schedule of sustainable development.

Areas of motion

- The aims of the network are carried out both at the extent of the member cities and on the worldwide level, considerably by sharing stories, understanding and best practices.
- There are expert and creative change programmes, studies and critiques on the revel in the creative cities, amongst different activities.

The annual convention of network cities

A spotlight of the community is the once a year conference of mayors and other stakeholders of community towns.
This offers a unique event to reinforce ties among creative towns from internationally.
The last convention was held in Santos, Brazil, and this year’s convention turned into Istanbul. The next conference will be held in July 2024 in Braga, Portugal.

Responsibilities of members

Every four years, member towns are required to submit a Membership Monitoring Report.
This report is supplied with an aim of demonstrating their steadfast dedication toward the implementation of the UCCN Mission Statement.
They present an action plan for the following 4 years, imparting insights into their achievements and lessons learnt, as well as the impact of the designation.