ChildFriendly Cities and Communities

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Child-Friendly Cities and Communities

• Christoph Baker
• Italian Committee for UNICEF
• Christchurch, 20 March 2009

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Child-Friendly Cities
Climate Changes, Urbanization and Children
Rights
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Child-Friendly Cities
Climate Changes, Urbanization and Children
Rights
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Child-Friendly Cities

• Some reference points
• 1959 UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child
• UN Conference on the Environment in Stockholm
• 1980 Club of Rome Limits to Growth
• 1987 UN Brundlandt Report Our Common Future
• 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
• 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro
• - Agenda 21
• 1996 UN II Habitat Conference in Istanbul

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Child-Friendly Cities

• Some concepts
• Child Rights
• Sustainability
• Biodiversity
• Think globally, act locally
• Good governance
• Citizenship
• Participation

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Child-Friendly Cities

• Concept introduced by UNICEF at the II UN Habitat
  Conference in Istanbul 1996
• a holistic container for child rights in their
  everyday life (not a sectorial approach)
• Mayors and local administrators as privileged
  actors
• Involvement of the whole community (families,
  professionals, associations, business, etc.)
• kids are visible, kids participate
• care for the environment is central

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Child-Friendly Cities

• A Child Friendly City is actively engaged in
  fulfilling the right of every young citizen to
• Influence decisions about their city
• Express their opinion on the city they want
• Participate in family, community and social life
• Recieve basic services such as health care and
  education 
• Drink safe water and have access to proper
  sanitation
• Be protected from exploitation, violence and
  abuse

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Child-Friendly Cities

• A Child Friendly City is actively engaged in
  fulfilling the right of every young citizen to
• Walk safely in the streets on their own
• Meet friends and play
• Have green spaces for plants and animals
• Live in an unpolluted environment
• Participate in cultural and social events
• Be an equal citizen of their city with access to
  every service,regardless of ethnic origin,
  religion, income, gender or disability

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Child-Friendly Cities

• Definition of a Child Friendly City (CFC)
• A Child Friendly City is a local system of good
  governance committed to fulfilling children's
  rights

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Child-Friendly Cities

• Experiences start around the world
• Italy, The Philippines, Spain, France, Brazil,
  South Africa, Slovenia, Switzerland, Palestine,
  Ukraine, Australia, and
• New Zealand?!!!

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The establishment of the International
  Secretariat on Child-Friendly Cities at the
  UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence
  (2000)
• www.childfriendlycities.org

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Child-Friendly Cities
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Child-Friendly Cities

• The CFC Toolkit (2004)
• A framework for Action
• Good practices and key references
• The CFC database
• The 9 Building Blocks
• Partnerships and networking

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The nine building blocks
• 1. CHILDRENS PARTICIPATION promoting childrens
  active involvement in issues that affect them
  listening to their views and taking them into
  consideration in decision-making processes

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The nine building blocks
• 2. A CHILD FRIENDLY LEGAL FRAMEWORK ensuring
  legislation, regulatory frameworks and procedures
  which consistently promote and protect the rights
  of all children

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The nine building blocks
• 3. A CITY-WIDE CHILDRENS RIGHTS STRATEGY
  developing a detailed, comprehensive strategy or
  agenda for building a Child Friendly City, based
  on the Convention

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The nine building blocks
• 4. A CHILDRENS RIGHTS UNIT OR COORDINATING
  MECHANISM developing permanent structures in
  local government to ensure priority consideration
  of childrens perspective

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The nine building blocks
• 5. 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

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The nine building blocks
• 6. A CHILDRENS BUDGET ensuring adequate
  resource commitment and budget analysis for
  children

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The nine building blocks
• 7. A REGULAR STATE OF THE CITYS CHILDREN REPORT
  ensuring sufficient monitoring and data
  collection on the state of children and their
  rights

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The nine building blocks
• 8. MAKING CHILDRENS RIGHTS KNOWN ensuring
  awareness of childrens rights among adults and
  children

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The nine building blocks
• 9. INDEPENDENT ADVOCACY FOR CHILDREN supporting
  nongovernmental organisations and developing
  independent human rights institutions -
  childrens ombudspeople or commissioners for
  children to promote childrens rights

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Child-Friendly Cities

• A child-friendly city and community has
• child-friendly schools
• baby and child-friendly hospitals and health
  care
• child-friendly sports and leisure facilities
• a sustainable environment
• inter-generational and multi-cultural relations
• means and tools to implement child-rights

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Child-Friendly Cities

• A child-friendly city and community has
• warning systems on violence, exploitation,
• marginalization
• policies against discrimination and exclusion
• good monitoring tools on the condition of
• childhood and adolescence

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So, what about us???
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Child-Friendly Cities

• The challenge of childrens participation
• How to take into account childrens opinions?
• children town councils
• children city consultations
• participatory urban planning
• dedicated town councils
• Mayors Defenders of children

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The Italian Experience
• how children town councils work
• 90 launched by municipalities, 5 by schools,
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• by NGOs
• preferred age group 10 to 14 year-olds
• 15-20 children meet on average 4 times a year
• majority of CTCs facilitated by schools
• members elected by their peers

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The challenge of childrens participation
• Children Town Councils (ctd)
• some CTCs have a budget from the adults Council
• some elect baby-mayors
• CTCs have a national Ngo Democrazia in Erba
• 750 CTCs were created in the past 15 years,
  approx.
• 500 are currently active

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Our wishes!!!
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Child-Friendly Cities

• The challenge of childrens participation
• childrens wish list
• cleaner cities (less pollution, less traffic,
  more green)
• safe playing areas
• I go to school alone
• more bicycle lanes
• all children equal

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The challenge of childrens participation
• Participatory urban planning
• local administrations involve children on
  planning
• schools create laboratories with technical
  experts
• (architects, urbanists, social workers)
• children elaborate proposals from design to
• implementation
• main areas of interest playing grounds, parks,
  street
• signals, meeting places, own media tools,

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The challenge of childrens participation
• Participation is also
• discovering your own city
• meeting other generations
• learning about citizenship rules and duties
• caring for the common goods
• becoming environmentally responsible

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The challenge of childrens participation
• some critical points
• the danger of tokenism and manipulation
• promises not kept
• superficial imitation of adult structures
• forced to use adult language
• different time frame for adults and children

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The challenge of childrens participation
• Participation alone does not make the difference
• the importance of the 9 steps
• adults must step down, ease the pressure
• children rights are human rights
• sustainable life-styles
• reducing the dictatorship of the automobile

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Child-Friendly Cities

• The road ahead
• UNICEF International Research on Participatory
  Assessment and Self-Assessment Tools (in 12
  countries)
• Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change
  (Dec. 2009)
• 5th European Conference on Child-Friendly Cities
  (Florence, 2010)

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Grazie e Arrivederci!
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Child-Friendly Cities

• www.childfriendlycities.org
• www.unicef.org
• www.unicef.it