Child Friendly Cities

A Child Friendly City is a local system of good governance
committed to fulfilling children's rights

BUILDING A CFC

• CFC Conceptual Framework
• Checklist
• Building blocks
• Good practices
• Indicators/Criteria for CFC
• Tools
• Key documents

Child impact assessment and evaluation: ensuring that there is a systematic process to assess the impact of law, policy and practice on children - in advance, during and after implementation

Under the Convention, governments at all levels, including city governments, are required to ensure that the best interests of the child are a primary consideration in all actions concerning children. No government can know whether this principle is being fulfilled without there being a rigorous process in place to assess the impact of law, policy and practice on children.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child has promoted the concept of child impact assessment at a national level. There has been considerable international and national discussion of the concept, but very few states have yet implemented the process. It is, of course, not easy. The non-discrimination process means that the impact of laws and policies on all children needs to be assessed, with particular attention to groups of children who are traditionally marginalised. Some laws and policies will only impact, or impact significantly, on certain groups or ages of children. Laws or policies should be assessed for their potential impact, in advance of being implemented. This needs to happen as early as possible in the process of policy formulation to enable it to influence decision-making. As possible models, there are many good examples among governments, including city governments, of working systems of environmental impact assessment, and some of gender impact assessment.

Once new policy or laws are implemented, there should be continuing assessment of the actual impact on children. And while city government needs to build these processes into policy development, it is also important that there should be independent child impact assessment, by NGOs and, where they exist, by independent human rights institutions for children. These innovative bodies, whose definition requires that they are established with legislative powers, should be empowered to act effectively as champions and watchdogs for children. Children's direct involvement in the process of impact assessment will be essential as children are often the only people who can accurately determine the impact of law or policy on their lives.

EXAMPLES

The CFC Secretariat has gathered a number of examples of child impact assessment and evaluation at both local and national levels of government, and from low-, middle- and high-income nations.

Each example includes the following documents:

• A worksheet describing the project (accessed from the CFC Database)
• Other documents, such as publications, guides, reports and strategies, developed by the project (when available)
• A project review prepared by the CFC Secretariat, based upon in-depth documentation of the project and developed on the basis of a standard research protocol (when available)
• Tools developed by the project (when available)

Child Friendly Movement, PHILIPPINES

Città sostenibili delle Bambine e dei Bambini (Sustainable Cities for Girls and Boys), ITALY

Ciudades Amigas de la Infancia (Child Friendly Cities), SPAIN

Giving children a voice, SWITZERLAND

Playlink, UK

Programa Prefeito Amigo da Criança (Child Friendly Mayor Programme), BRAZIL

Sistema de información local - SIL (Local information system), ECUADOR

The Society for Children of Youth of British Columbia (SCY), CANADA

Towns and Districts friends of children, CROATIA

UNICEF Certificate: approved municipality, BRAZIL