In October 2021, the Philippine Creative Cities Network (PCCN) was launched as a support group, incubator and accelerator for cities who believe in creativity as a means for sustainable and impactful development in their local government units.  As of August 2022, more than 40 cities have already signed the Philippine Creative Cities Manifesto to affirm their commitment to this ideal.

               Membership in the PCCN is a steppingstone in the country’s goal to develop more United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Creative Cities.  In November last year Philippine Creative City Playbook (PCCP) was launched to help member cities to do initial self-assessments and develop action plans.  This project dubbed “Building Roadmaps for Resilient Philippine Creative Cities” is a follow up on the PCCP and aims to identify creative champions and help representatives from potential creative localities in the Philippines to start mapping their creative fields following the UNESCO Creative Cities Network guidelines.

               Through this project, the city representatives will be able to assess their level of creative development and leverage these strengths to sustain economic resiliency. This will also encourage the cities to assess their current city development plans to see if it is in line with the UNESCO standard and promote cooperation in all sectors to develop their creative cities. 

                Originally intended to be launched in the last quarter of 2022, this project is now slated to get off the ground in early 2023 and is supported by is supported by Thames International’s Innovation and Creative Entrepreneurship (ICE) program and the Philippine Creative City Network (PCCN), through the Department of Trade and Industry Competitiveness and Innovation Group (DTI-CIG), funded by the National Economic and Development Authority FY2022 Innovation Grant.