UNESCO Crafts Prize 1990-2005

Regional Contest for Craftsworkers

In a constant effort to recognize and promote excellence, to encourage complementarity between cultural activities and economic process, the UNESCO Crafts Prize is replaced by the UNESCO Award of Excellence for Handicrafts. This programme aims to promote quality crafts and its distribution on international markets.

The UNESCO Crafts Prize, which was established in 1990 under the Ten-Year Plan of Action for the Development of Crafts in the World, was meant to reward and encourage the talents of the most creative craftsworkers and to make their products known outside their place of original. This Prize also allowed to promote regional craft exhibitions and fairs. Besides financial rewards of a total amount of US 10,000 dollars, the prize winners benefited from a series of promotional activities: exhibitions at UNESCO Headquarters, participation in international trade shows, broad dissemination of their works through different means of communication. To date, 83 artisans from 4 regions (Africa, Arab States, Asia-Pacific, Latin America-Caribbean) have been rewarded on the occasion of 13 regional craft fairs.

Between 1990 and 2005, awards have been made on the occasion of the following events:

International African Arts and Crafts Trade Show of Ouagadougou, SIAO (Burkina Faso), 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004.

• Ibero-American Crafts Fair in Tenerife (Spain), 1992
• International Crafts Fair in Havana, FIART (Cuba), 1995 and 2001
• Expoartesanías’97 in Santafe de Bogota (Colombia), 1997
• International Crafts Fair in Cordoba (Argentina), 1999
• International Crafts Fair in Mexico City (Mexico), 2002 
• International Meeting of Crafts Business in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil), 2004

• "Asian Textiles" Exhibition in Chiang Mai (Thailand), 1992
• Exhibition on Indigo Dye in Chiang Mai (Thailand), 1998
• Exhibition on Embroidery in Hyderabad (India), 2001
• Regional Craft Improvement Workshop/Exhibition on Home Accessories in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), 2003
• International Silk and Spices Festival in Bukhara (Uzbekistan), 2005

• Arab Creative Crafts Festival in Tunis (Tunisia), 1994
• Exhibition on "Costumes for ceremonies" in Tunis (Tunisia), 2000
• International Crafts Fair in Algiers (Algeria), 2002
• Creative Crafts Fair in Tunis (Tunisia), 2005

Thanks to the generous cooperation of the organizers of the International Fair "Maison & Objet" (Paris-Nord Villepinte, France), the Ateliers d'Art de France, UNESCO had a 24 m² stand where the first UNESCO Crafts Prize winners for 2002-2003 and for 2004-2005 were invited to exhibit their works (respectively in September 2003 and September 2005).