A Child Friendly City is a local system of good governance
committed to fulfilling children's rights
South Africa
Child Friendly Cities initiative in Johannesburg
The Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council (GJMC), with the initial support of UNICEF Country Office, undertook in 2000 a Child Friendly Cities initiative to include the development of a Metropolitan Programme of Action for Children and to influence local laws within their municipality. This broad-reaching plan, based on a participatory approch, wanted to incorporate child rights into city planning and allocate major resources to the city's most deprived children. These and other achievements started laying a foundation for change, but difficulties remained: democratic institutions were still in their infancy and there was no precedent for government cooperation with civil society. A follow-up research was conducted in 2003 to assess the status of the initiative. The research found out it had not continued due to political and administrative changes and also discovered that the participatory aspects of the initiative was weak as it did not receive a follow-up in terms of implementation of actions. Articles about this initiative are available on this website (see CFC Database section).
For more information
Children, Youth and Environments (CYE) Journal
http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/
