From 1-5 March, a series of workshops and round tables on the topic of Creative Cities will be held in Skopje. The events are supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands in Skopje, and they will be on the specific topics of Creative City Concept, Mediamatic Travel Website and Creative Planning. The cities of Skopje, Bitola and Tetovo and the municipalities of Aerodrom, Centar and Karpoš will participate at the workshops, along with representatives of The Hague, and a number of representatives of Macedonian and Dutch civil society organizations that work on culture.

A web based cultural guide to Skopje will be one of the outcomes of these workshops, and there will also be an open discussion on how government and NGOs can cooperate in creating a more facilitating atmosphere for creative development. An open roundtable on cultural development will be held on 3 March from 10:00 - 12:00 hrs.

The Creative City concept was developed in late 1980es; its focus was on how arts and cultural concerns could be better integrated into the planning process for city development. The concept has developed further around the philosophy that there is always more creative potential, and people should therefore be encouraged to think, plan and act with imagination when they deal with urban problems. A creative city identifies, nurtures, attracts and sustains talent so it mobilizes ideas, talents and creative organizations. Cities have been able to resort to cultural planning and cultural resources as part of their efforts to grow into creative cities, and they used them for planning of urban resources including design, architecture, parks, natural environment, animation, and especially arts activity and tourism. This means strategic and integral use of city’s cultural resources (such as local and indigenous traditions of public life, festivals, rituals or stories, but also language, food and cooking, clothing and sub-cultures) via forming partnerships between the public, private and voluntary sectors. Several Dutch cities have developed their specific cultural policies – the City of Rotterdam, acted upon advice provided by the Rotterdam Council for Art and Culture and aimed at developing its international cultural policy; with this document, the city strives to realise more profit from the link between the art sector and other policy areas, such as the economy and urban customer relationship management; the City of The Hague, on the other hand, pledged to develop further its cultural industries around the creative city concept.

More information on the Creative City concept can be found at:

 www.charleslandry.com

 www.comedia.org.uk

 www.creativeclass.com

 www.creativeeconomy.com

 www.livable.com

Further information on the activities can be obtained with :

Beti Bakovska, Advisor Development Cooperation at the Netherlands Embassy

e-mail:  beti.bakovska@minbuza.nl

tel: (02) 3109 250, ext. 215

Kalina Bunevska Isakovska, Cultural Scout/Organiser

e-mail:  kalina@blesok.com.mk

tel: 071 377 635