For every child
Health, Education, Equality, Protection
ADVANCE HUMANITY
For every child
What is a Child Friendly City? It is a city, or any local system of governance, committed to fulfilling children's rights. It is a city where the voices, needs, priorities and rights of children are an integral part of public policies, programmes and decisions. It is, as a result, a city that is fit for all.
The Child Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI) was launched in 1996 to act on the resolution passed during the second UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) to make cities liveable places for all; in UNICEF terms, for "children first." The Conference declared that the well-being of children is the ultimate indicator of a healthy habitat, a democratic society and of good governance.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child challenges cities to conceive of themselves, of the services, amenities and quality of life they provide, in a new way. While there may be illegal settlements, from a child rights' perspective there are no illegal children. All children in cities have the right to access basic services and enjoy opportunities for development. This is true whether they live with their families or alone, in informal settlements or on the streets. CFCI advocates the adoption of governance approaches and participatory urban management that promote the realization of the rights of the youngest citizens.
In high-, middle- and low-income nations alike, including several European countries, a growing number of municipalities have made the political decision to become "child friendly". The process aimed to building a CFC is synonymous with the implementation of the Convention in a local governance setting and incorporates a number of characteristics that put children front and centre.
In practice the movement for Child Friendly Cities has seen young citizens take part in municipal decision-making and help planners design "the city they want;" and child-sensitive quality indicators have been developed to measure progress against child-oriented goals.
With the growth of CFC activities, cities have increasingly expressed the need to exchange notes, share experiences and sort out common problems together. Informal exchanges have gradually developed into networks and regular meetings. After Habitat II, CFCI partners gathered in Accra, Ghana in 1997 and in Italy in four major fora in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000.
A CFC Secretariat was established in 2000 to serve as a focal point for gathering and standardizing CFC methods and techniques that are succeeding on the ground.
The CFC movement has mobilized a wide range of partners: local authorities; central government; civil society organizations such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs); communities; national and international agencies; experts and academic institutions; business and the media; and, importantly, children and youth groups. One critical partnership is with the Mayors, Defenders of Children, launched by UNICEF in Dakar, Senegal in 1992. Global meetings of child-friendly mayors have encouraged municipal authorities, along with other actors, to orient their development activities towards women and children and to increase investments in child-focused programmes.
The Child Friendly Cities movement has evolved as a network of committed and interested parties, a flexible and organic approach that has captured a rich and diverse range of experiences, and permitted the integration of a variety of programme components. However, this structure makes it difficult to focus the technical and scientific capacity needed to process and standardize methods and techniques that are succeeding on the ground. It also makes it hard to monitor the impact of single interventions on the lives of children and communities.
An International Secretariat for Child Friendly Cities was created in 2000 at UNICEF, Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy. Consistent with the mandate of the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre to promote understanding of child rights, it collects, documents, distils and disseminates experience on local strategies to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child and pursue the Millennium Development Goals. .
Our planet is increasingly urban. Most of that growth is taking place in developing countries and most of it is associated with poverty. About half of the world's poor already live in urban areas and the number of people living in informal urban settlements is expected to double in the next 25 years. By the year 2025, some 60 per cent of children in the developing world will live in cities and half will be poor. At the same time, a worldwide trend of government decentralization is underway, i.e., local governments are assuming more responsibility for providing social services, a function once performed by state governments. The convergence of these two trends means that cities need to equip themselves to serve a growing number of children, families, communities, and to help them find solutions to poverty.
The CFC approach is a means to both ends. It provides a strategy to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child at the local level of governance. While a city is likely to remain the most common setting where CFC processes develop, any local systems of governance are potential candidates to set in motion CFC initiatives aimed at taking children's rights closer to young citizens.
Growing evidence and experience show that large numbers of urban children are at risk in many ways, especially those who live in poverty or are affected by discrimination. These children drop out of schools that are poorly managed; not relevant to their culture, experience and aspirations; or do not prepare them for employment. Instead, they often become victims of exploitive child labour. They lack access to safe water and sanitation facilities; live on polluted or unserviced land and under constant threat of eviction; and are exposed to infections that spread rapidly in overcrowded environments. They live in informal settlements and on city streets, with little opportunity to play as children should, with indoor space that is typically overcrowded and outdoor space that is filthy and contaminated. The sheer size and diversity of migration to cities leads to large numbers of people living in neighbourhoods where community cohesion is weak and even divisive. Urban life often erodes family structures, impoverishing the quality of adult care for children and jeopardizing traditional safety nets. Many children and adolescents live in gangs on the streets, take to drug addiction and are exposed to exploitation and abuse. Cities are typically the hubs for child trafficking.
In the cities of the high-income countries children may be threatened by traffic, pollution and a shortage of green and open spaces in which to play. In both rich and poor countries, urban children and adolescents feel increasingly imprisoned and isolated.
Cities, however, are also places for opportunities. Higher density allows for lower per-capita costs for providing basic amenities and specialized services. People are within the reach of mass media and can easily to be informed and made aware. Physically and socially, citizens can meet easily and mobilize to claim their rights and promote solutions to shared problems.
The CFC Initiative and CFC Secretariat aim to take advantage of the opportunities for common action and partnerships that cities offer. A CFC approach is proactive and preventative. It is a powerful tool for identifying disparities and forms of discrimination, and addressing them in a systemic manner through the holistic implementation of full rights for all children. Where CFC processes are in place, there is a mechanism to reach and involve the child where she or he lives, in the family, school, neighbourhood, community, village, town and city.
In a Child Friendly City, children and youth are viewed not as part of the problems, but as part of the solutions.
a city friendly to children is friendly to all
