The concept of creative cities has evolved from Richard Florida’s notion—which focused on the creative class as the driving force behind urban development—toward a strategy for territorial sustainability based on the ability to foster creative thinking, authenticity, and divergence in local communities (Capra, 2009; Landry, 2013; UNESCO, 2022). In this context, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) established the Creative Cities Network (UCCN) in 2004, formally aligning its mission in 2016 with the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This dissertation adopts a decolonial perspective to critically examine the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, recognizing that creativity, design, and sustainability are not neutral categories, but rather constructions shaped by power relations, epistemic hierarchies, and disputes over the legitimate ways of representing, governing, and imagining the sustainable city of the 21st century.

To this end, it draws on the “design for the pluriverse” approach (Escobar, 2018) and integrates the principles of governance from Dona theory (Raworth, 2017). From this perspective, the analysis is not aimed solely at identifying best practices or patterns of collaboration, but rather at understanding how the network produces, distributes, and legitimizes certain forms of knowledge, while subordinating, translating, or rendering others invisible. The objective of the study is to identify behavioral patterns, decision-making preferences, and participation dynamics within the network, in order to identify opportunities for improving its performance as a platform for cultural diplomacy. The analysis employs Human-Centered Design (HCD) (IDEO, 1978) as a methodological approach to compare observed practices with the program’s stated objectives (UNESCO, 2016). The results identify strategies that enable the alignment of individual efforts by institutional representatives in creative territories, facilitating pragmatic and transformative actions aimed at building sustainable futures.