With cancelled concerts, postponed festivals, and closed cinemas and theatres, artists across the world are struggling to make ends meet due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit the cultural and creative industries worldwide.

The UN education and cultural agency, UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network, is a platform for international cooperation, boasting more than 240 cities sharing a common commitment to harness creativity as the driving force behind sustainable development.

UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for culture, Ernesto Ottone Ramírez, has been speaking to UN News’s Li Zhang, about how cities are responding to the crisis.